This impressive Bower was built by a male Satin Bowerbird that frequents a friends property on the Darling Downs, South-East Queensland, Australia. Male Satin Bowerbirds build these specialised stick structures that are then decorated with blue items to impress the female. The owner of the property said that there were numerous bowers on the property and that often the male would use the same bower each year and other times build another one. She said that the male bowerbird uses the purple/blue berries from the native dianella plant to also decorate the bower, along with straws, bottle tops and blue pegs and anything else it can find. The use of the bower is really to impress it's mate and is part of the courtship process that will hopefully impress the female enough that she is convinced that it is the best bird to mate with. The satin bowerbirds do not lay their eggs in these bowers but in a traditional nest in a close by tree.
The craftmanship of these satin bowerbirds is magnificent and I was thrilled to come across this one, as I had never seen one before and very grateful for my friend for letting me photograph it.
Judi Gray
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| Bower of the Male Satin Bowerbird |
UPDATE:
- Judi's photo of a Satin Bowerbird Bower featured in an exhibit for school children on "Animal Architecture" in Science World in Canada in 2014.
