Vik's Gallery:   Satin Bowerbird (2/4)

PASSERIFORMES: Ptilonorhynchidae

Ptilonorhynchus violaceus  

Some people accuse the male bowerbird of getting it easy, throwing his leg over and then leaving the female to do all the nest-building and chick-raising stuff alone.

But this courting business ain't all beer and skittles either, you know.

The perfect site has to be found for a bower, twin identical mirror-image towers have got to be built out of the finest sticks, and any marauding males chased off. The bower has to be artistically decorated with blue objects. Blue! Not the easiest colour to find, I'm telling you.

When it's all ready, I 'ave to spend endless hours up a tree singing to attract a female, and then she nit-picks over the bower and expects live entertainment at the same time in the form of yours-truly doing a song and dance routine! That's me doing me very best in the picture, but she don't look impressed, do she?

All this to impress the female! So perhaps the reason that I don't help with the nest and chicks is not only that I'm too busy, but I'm stuffed, to boot.