Satin bowerbird. Credit: 0ystercatcher

The handsome male satin bowerbird is a glossy blue-black while the female is green and brown. It grows up to 35 centimetres and both male and female have bright blue eyes.

Where

You’ll see satin bowerbirds in Booderee foraging on the ground or in trees in any treed or sheltered area.

Feeding

Satin bowerbirds eat mainly fruits, supplemented by leaves in winter and insects during the summer breeding season.

Breeding

The male satin bowerbird is famed for his elaborate courtship ritual. During the breeding season, he builds a small avenue of twigs, the ‘bower’, and decorates it with bright blue coloured objects such as parrot feathers, flowers, bottle tops, wrappers, drinking straws - whatever he can find.

He paints the walls of the bower with a mixture of chewed vegetable matter and saliva and meticulously maintains it throughout the year.

In this courtship arena, the male displays himself to an approaching female, strutting, bowing, calling and mimicking.

If impressed by the ritual, the female moves into the bower avenue for mating and then leaves to perform the nesting duties on her own, while the male readies himself for courting again. The female then builds a small, shallow nest from twigs and leaves in trees and vines.

Sounds

A wide variety of calls include loud harsh, grinding, and wheezy notes and also a rapid tzzar-tzzar-tzzar-tzzar-tzzar-tzzar.