Bowerbirds

On The Art of Seduction & How To Think Like An Artist

A couple of months ago I was invited to spend some time at the Australian Museum, find three things there I love and then take visitors on a personalised mini tour to show them my favourites, and if I wanted, to incorporate my artistic practice into that. I was thrilled to participate and found myself especially beguiled by the bowerbird, a species unique to Australia and Papua New Guinea. Satin Bowerbirds are the most commonly found variety in Australia, but there are twenty seven others including the Golden, Great and Tooth Billed Bowerbirds, all with their own unique ways, appearances and complex love rituals. Though mostly quite plain in appearance, the male bowerbird has been called ‘the Barry White of the bird world’, or ‘Nature’s Great Seducer’. Deep in the YouTube comments of a bowerbird video I found this description: ‘Damn, he’s got moves. That’s a seduction parlor indeed. He’s an architect, a decorator, a collector and a singer. How is he still single?’

The male bowerbird is irresistibly attracted to vividly coloured items, which he uses to create his distinctive bachelor pad, an aesthetic work of art and architecture, ingeniously engineered for the sole purpose of luring a mate. Males spend years devoted to building intricate tunnel shaped bowers made from tiny entwined twigs, featuring a stage/dance-floor/display court in front, sometimes carpeted with moss, the insides of the archway painted with crushed berries or lichens, the exterior elaborately adorned with foraged objects; flowers, seeds, shells, bones, insects, feathers and berries, preferably in blue tones, but they will go for other vibrant shades if nothing blue can be found. The Vogelkop Bowerbird prefers dark colours to highlight his bright collection of flowers and seeds, favouring a backdrop of deer dung and charcoal. Discarded human junk, such as bottle caps, broken glass, plastic lids, hair elastics, straws, pegs, pen caps and candy wrappers are highly prized for their seductively bright shades. Rivals steal coveted items from each other, even forming gangs to carry out heists. Only in the human world are such highly decorated structures found. This nature blog brilliantly describes bowerbirds as ‘kleptomaniac love architects’.

Several males compete to build their bowers near each other, the younger males watching and learning from the older, more experienced birds. Scientists have discovered that the rather plain bowerbirds will select items that reflect light and create optical illusions to highlight their own features, such as the exact blue of their eyes or the bright but hidden neon pink nuchal crest of the Great Bowerbird.

Females observe from a distance. A harem may gather to watch from afar. When the male feels his love nest is embellished to perfection, he will lure a female over by expanding and contracting his pupils to mesmerise her, making particularly throaty calls and going through his repertoire of imitating sounds - other bird calls, children playing, dogs barking, wood chopping, waving his wings like a matador’s cape (according to the BBC in this fabulous video where the mating ritual doesn’t end well) then prancing, sashaying, undulating, quivering and shaking his plumage while presenting his objects to her. If she is impressed enough she will enter the bower and softly coo to let him know he may mount her - for all of a furiously passionate few seconds - and then she’ll fly away and raise her babies near the other female birds. The male bowerbird then moves on to his next conquest. The older females may remember especially impressive bowers and return for a booty call every now and then.

I was so fascinated by the bowerbird world that I made up a song on the spot and sang it during my little museum tour. I didn’t record it so it disappeared into the ether but the idea of writing a song from the perspective of a male bowerbird resonated and over the next few days I recorded snatches and verses into my phone …. gathering them together like a bowerbird would. I couldn’t help thinking how much a male bowerbird is like a human artist, finding and being inspired by small things others may not notice or appreciate, toiling and fossicking away alone, gathering things together to create an impressive display, which may or may not have the desired outcome of seducing the audience.

Here’s the final snippet, improvised and recorded sitting in a car waiting to pick up my son from school. There’s also a ten minute version but I didn’t think anyone would want to hear that! I do however hope to record the full catastrophe soon.

Until then, here’s my ode to the male bowerbird and don’t forget to observe the world around you, you never know what amazing things are going on right in your backyard….

Something that’s blue

I’ll find for you

Lay it down on the ground

At your feet, I’ll lay it down

Don’t even know you now

But oh I’m gonna show you how

How fine my love would be

Girl you’re gonna watch me

I’ll dance in the rain

Preen in the sun

I’ll lead the parade

I’m jump my own gun

Berries of red

Leaves fallen green

These shiny things they mean

Everything to me

Pieces of tin

My pearlescent grin

I’m motion in blue

Feathers flying for you

So follow me there

You can sit in your chair

And watch from afar

Like you’re sitting at a bar

And when you decide

You’ll play my bride

Even just for tonight

I’ll make it worth the fight

Then you’ll fly away

And I’ll have no say

Never see you again

We won’t even be friends

But its in my nature

To say see you later

I can’t stick around

You won’t wear my crown

I’ll build a bower for you

Shake a tail feather too

You’ll bow to my love

You’ll never get enough

And I’ll never see

My progeny

I’ll keep moving on

Sing another girl your song

Thats just the way that I am

I can’t change who I am

It was set in the stars

A love hardly fast

So goodbye to all that

I’ll take my shining hat

Golden bottle tops

My discarded socks

Everything I am

When I’m the best man

Know I did it for you

I tried to shine just for you

You can find a new way

Go raise your young

Know I was just for fun

If you want permanence

Find yourself a nice fence

Birds were made to fly

Keep on moving through the night

Oh I can’t stand to

Think of what we once had

Such an epic encounter

How I just knew how to mount you

I’m so perfect and true

Let me prove it to you

And then I’ll fly away

There’s nothing more to say

But wasn’t it magnificent

All the work that went into it

I’ll go rest on my perch

Exhausted from all the work

And never again

We won’t even be friends

I’ll never see you again…