The recording below is from a teenage (probably 5 or 6-year-old) Paradise Riflebird which I recorded while it was calling its head off just outside our bedroom window one morning (I left Rose’s well-timed sneeze in the recording for good effect). The male riflebird issues these harsh rasping calls as territorial advertisements to any females who might be casting about for a mating partner.
If he thinks he’s got an interested lady, he’ll change gears into an elaborate (but quite frankly rather comical) courtship display and his rasping voice suddenly becomes more rapid and excited as the dancing begins. You can hear his courtship voice here.
If I’m lying in bed of a morning when I hear his calls change to that new syncopated rhythm, I immediately visualise him flashing side-to-side along a branch like some wonderful wind-up toy. Next year I’m hoping he’ll finally earn his resplendent mature male colours. Like bowerbirds to which they are closely related, riflebird males take up to 7 or 8 years for their full colours to emerge. In any case, it seems to take them this long to perfect their elaborate dance performance.
A quick word about riflebirds
You’d be forgiven for doubting that the harsh, rather brutal call of this frisky male riflebird could come from the throat of a songbird, but indeed riflebirds are part of the birds-of-paradise family Paradiseidae, in the order of Passeriformes (the songbirds). Not only that, but it’s a call that has resounded through the ancient rainforests of Australian and New Guinean rainforests for a very, very long time. Longer in fact than the duration that songbirds have likely been calling anywhere else across the planet.
Yep – riflebirds are another one of our home-spun Gondwanan originals, having evolved exclusively within Australian (or more likely – New Guinean) rainforests. They are therefore one of the oldest songbirds on Earth and a worthy sound to be woken to in the morning.