You know life has been intense when an incident from the backyard in spring doesn’t make it to the blog until the tailend of summer. Our backyard re-enactment of “The Bachelor” had to be at least four months ago because satin bowerbirds only do their courtship routines from April for September. The bowerbird dating show was a while ago now, but it was a truly memorable occasion.
A couple of times in the past we’ve found some blue items – pegs, bottle tops – in the bottom of the garden, collected together and rearranged over a period of days in a mysterious and seemly significant way. But this time the assemblage was visible from our back verandah. We had ringside seats for the show.
Though he was decked our in the iridescent black of a mature male – something that only happens when satin bowerbirds are at least seven years old – our bachelor seemed to be new at this. There was no signs of a bower per se, just his collection of pretty objects in an unsalubrious corner of the garden. I spent a day on the deck “working from home”, watching him shuffling them around. The milkbottle/yellow leaf combination seemed to be a particular favourite.
After quite a bit of this faffing around, he had a visit from a female.
Female satin bowerbird comes to look around
Cue bending, twisting, flapping of wings, along with some impressive eye bulging.
Well, impressive to me but possibly not to the visiting female. I know it’s anthropomorphic but this face screams “get me out of here!”
And indeed, within minutes, a second male arrived on the scene, having surveyed the situation from afar. He had a look around, somewhat dismissively it appeared, and then abruptly flew off with the female in tow. I almost heard him muttering out of the corner of his beak “C’mon babe”.
Our bachelor, thwarted, seemed to decide that inadequacies in his collection of blue objects was the key problem. My kids had helpfully (if problematically from a plastic waste point of view) scattered some colourful gee-gaws around the back patio. Our guy seemed concerned that one of the “house” wattlebirds might have an eye on the azure ornaments that were key to his sexual success. It was on.
One distinctly irked bowerbird
Having put the little wattlebird firmly back in its box, our lovelorn male returned with additional trinkets to pimp his bower. But to no avail.
There were other visitors that afternoon, but despite sustained and prurient interest, I saw no signs of sexual congress and the next day there was no repeat performance although the blue objects remained in their inauspicious arrangement by the woodpile.
However, a couple of weeks later the abandoned pile of treasures received another inspection from a “green” – presumably a young male who hadn’t yet earned the glossy violet-black feathers of a grown-up.
He seemed to be practising his courtship display, favouring golden twigs rather than the milk-bottle/leaf combo. He had that eye-bulge down pat already though. I wonder if we will see him back – perhaps in the mottled black-and-green plumage – for the next season of the Bowerbird Bachelors.
