Spotted Bowerbird (Chlamydera maculata) at bower Bowra Station Queensland Australia

[Rod Warnock]

Spotted Bowerbird (Chlamydera maculata) at bower Bowra Station Queensland
Canon EOS 40D Lens 100-400mm L IS USM at 135 mm ISO 1000 F5.0 1/250 flash 18 April 2009 4.29pm
This image taken from a hide at the Spotted Bowerbird's playground at the small cottage at Bowra Station. The range of objects brought into this bower is amazing rifle cartridge cases, snail shells , both bleached and charred bones, Callitris cones, glass shards, galvanised roofing nails, bottle necks etc. The bower itself is seen out of focus the background. The Spotted Bowerbird occurs in inland Queensland, New South Wales and the far north-west of Victoria. The male is polygamous and attends the bower bringing a variety of finds (as above) to display with. Females build a nest and raise the young solely.
Best regards
Rod Warnock

[Karl Egressy]

Interesting collection of treasures, and a nice picture of the bird, Rod.

[Rod Warnock]

Thanks Karl ! I should had added The pink feathers on the neck are termed a nuchal crest can be concealed by adjacent feathers and can also be exposed when the bird is displaying by fanning the feathers laterally. Spotted Bowerbirds are great mimics and also have a scolding somewhat raucous call also when displaying. Apart from attracting females to the bower other males will come to the bower and may rob the bower of some of the trinkets. Fascinating to watch from a hide and the object of a lot of research see : http://www.mdahlem.net/birds/23/spotbowr.php for images of neck area. Other research concerns the maintenance of the display items an abstract may be seen at:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1691031/.
Best regards
Rod

[Marina Scarr]

Ditto Karl. The bird is really well exposed and has nice colors and details. I also like the angle. Thanks for the story on these. Always love to learn about the subjects.