http://plasticisadrug.blogspot.com.au/2014/04/plastic-birds.html

28 April 2014

Plastic (land) birds

We have a flock of Satin Bowerbirds who live around us. They're shy,
clever birds. You should see them go for our strawberries in summer!
They're attracted to foods in that colour spectrum. I guess before the
arrival of whites they may have gone for such foods as the native
blueberry or lilli pillis.

The male is glossy black and a bit larger than a pigeon. The female and
juveniles are olive and brown. The male builds a bachelor pad - a bower
- to lure chicks, er. I mean, female birds. If he can get her there, he
shows her his collection of bright blue things (which is a bit like a
Barry White vinyl record collection for us). He does a sexy dance for
her, and then they are married in the bird way and have kids. I don't
know whether they're monogamous, but there's only one bower on our
property, and probably 30 birds, so..... hmmm, sounds like a bit of a
player to me.

As a kid, I remember seeing a bower and it was all blue foil milk bottle
tops (from the glass milk bottle days) and blue pegs. Now, it's all
manner of plastic crap. However, I did recently see a passionflower down
there, lying just at the edge. How wonderful an all natural bower must
have looked! I don't believe Aboriginal people had any kind of blue
dyes, mainly clay and ochres. So the birds would probably have used
berries and flowers only.