Animal Diaries Archive

Soren's Blue Bower

21 March 2008

We have some exciting things happening in our rainforest aviary at the moment. Our new addition, Soren, who is a male Satin Bowerbird, has been very busy over the past few weeks.

Bower birds are known for their courtship behavior and the unique bowers built by the males. These bowers are built on the ground and are a stick structure of two parallel walls in which the male then decorates with bright blue objects he collects, such as bottle tops, clothes pegs and straws. The bower is used to attract females and entice them to breed, but as you might guess the female is very picky and may visit several bowers before settling on which male she will breed with. Once the mating is over the female will then leave the bower on her own and go off to build her nest 30meters or higher in the trees, in which she will lay her eggs. The male is left to ready himself for his next courtship.

Little Soren has been busy doing just this. He has started building his bower and placing blue objects along the front. We have given him a variety of both dark and light blue bottle tops and pegs, although he shown more interest in the darker ones placing only them in a nice line at the front of his bower. He is very protective of his bower chasing away the king parrots and emerald doves who seem to have found an interest in his construction.

The bird staff is very excited to see what Soren does next and how his behavior changes, so stay tuned and be sure to come to the rainforest aviary and check out his hard work.