Our van park Bundilla at Durras North is right in the middle of the Murramarang National Park and there are easy walking trails through the bush and around the lake.
Yesterday we set out for a walk before we came home and look what we found!
I noticed a dark 'flash' in a tree and saw a male Satin Bower bird above us. Aha says I, I wonder where he came from? as you can see (or can't see really!) the bush looked fairly nondescript until I investigated further. I looked down and saw a blue peg - hmmm that's 'out of place' I thought.
I then peered under a Burrawang palm and saw this.
What priviledge to find his bower.
He has been very busy building his display 'vestibule' and lining the actual bower with saliva and charcoal mix - so the book tells me :-).
He has it decorated with straws mainly but also blue feathers, pegs and bottle caps. We found later that the park caretaker had thrown a blue peg onto the grass near the shower block when he was cleaning and it had gone when he went to pick it up - I wonder if it was the same one?
We see quite a few females down there and altho they are timid, they will come up on the deck for food. We don't seem to see the males, perhaps it's because they are too busy 'building' etc.
As you can see he wasn't too happy at us looking at his 'parade ground'.
It's so special that they build this close to 'civilisation'.
I just hope that the big goannas we saw later on don't find him.
1 comment:
How lucky are you. We don't get bower birds here and I would so love to see one - and a lyre bird.
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