Male satin bowerbirds are one of the most uptight and self-absorbed songbirds in the world. A mature male (they have to wait 7 years for their ‘colours’) will spend every day from about mid-July through to late summer building, maintaining, beautifying and generally fussing over a performance bower. While roaming his territory to cavort for prospecting females he must also remain forever vigilant for neighbouring males who will take any opportunity allowed them to bum-rush a rival bower and completely destroy the entire structure.
As a final disgrace, the raider will stuff his greedy bill full of coveted blue treasures, among which the azure feathers of crimson rosella are perhaps the most high-value items. Studies show that having a crimson rosella feather in one’s treasure collection practically guarantees females will lose their minds over you.
The courtship voice that I’ve recorded here is only half of the full call. This is the call of a male bowerbird perched in low shrubbery some 10 metres from his bower (far enough away to make himself more visible to the girls, but close enough to watch for raiding bastards). He uses this call to advertise his wares.
Once females are actually in the bower (HIS precious bower…it is almost more than he can tolerate to allow them to actually touch it!) he changes gears into an amazing mixed-artform performance, with a strangely mechanical dance set to industrial churring, whizzing and grinding sounds (the second part of his courtship call). And as if that isn’t enough, he also pops his purple iris’s out like Arnold Schwarzenegger in the movie Total Recall (the original, not the stupid remake).