Bowerbirds; charismatic old Australians

Bowerbirds have long fascinated laypeople and scientists (not to mention the odd natural history blogger). Obviously enough the key focus has been on the remarkable behaviour which gave them their name - the males' extraordinarily complex display stage and performance - and I shall be taking up that theme here.

Great Bowerbird Chlamydera nuchalis at bower, Boodjamulla NP, Queensland.

Their very origin and nature has been long debated, but it seems the answer is more interesting, and perhaps surprising, than the position held until recently that they are very close to the birds of paradise. In fact they are not close at all to those other great displayers; there are three Australian super-families of the old Gondwanan passerines, and the bowerbirds belong to the oldest of them (Menuroidea), along with lyrebirds, scrubbirds and treecreepers. (Birds of paradise, in the super-family Corvoidea, are closest to the White-winged Chough and Apostlebird, monarch flycatchers, and crows and ravens.)

There are 20 species, 10 restricted to New Guinea, eight to Australia, and two shared. Most are tropical, suggesting that their origins lie there, though one has expanded well into the temperate south-east. Two in Australia are at home in semi-arid and even arid inland woodlands. All are primarily fruit-eaters, and most also eat leaves, unusually among birds (especially in Australia); invertebrates, and even frogs and small lizards are also widely taken, especially for feeding to chicks.

Building the bower is a huge undertaking. Firstly a platform is created, comprising a deep layer of sticks, into which curved sticks are inserted, facing inward to form an avenue. In a series of Great Bowerbird bowers in Queensland, between 1400 and 1800 substantial sticks were counted in the bower (not counting the platform). Decorations vary between species, but while the Satin Bowerbird of the east coast of Australia does use primarily blue items to reflect his own colour, others tend to use a range of paler objects.

Satin Bowerbird bower, Bomaderry Creek Regional Reserve, suburban Nowra.
Here the blue decorations are almost exclusively artificial - plastic straws above,
and milk bottle rings below. (Sadly the latter have proved fatal in some cases, getting caught around the bird's neck.)

In more natural situations I have seen blue feathers, flowers and berries, and more unusual
items (which are apparently highly sought) such as shed snake skins and bones.

The Great Bowerbird bower at Boodjamulla featured many stones, some bones, plastic,
green berries and beer can ring-pulls...

... while this one south of Darwin focussed almost entirely on big snail shells...

... and this one in the same area was captivated by green bottle glass.

This Western Bowerbird bower (note that unlike the previous species, this one is open at the top)
at the Olive Pink Botanic Gardens in Alice Springs, central Australia, had a more modest collection
of bones and white plastic...

.... while this one nearby was taken by the fruits of Quandong Santalum acuminatum.

Most species paint the inner walls of the bower with a 'brush' of bark, using charcoal and chewed-up leaves and fruits. The bower is aligned north-south to make the most of the light on the decorations.

In Australia all but one of the bower-builders construct these avenues; only the Golden Bowerbird of the ranges near Cairns in north Queensland belongs to the 'maypole bower' school of construction. In this group, sticks or orchid stems are piled up around a sapling, or pair of saplings, to two metres high, and decorated with lichens and white flowers and fruit.

Golden Bowerbird bower, Mount Elliott, north Queensland.
(Scan of old slide - sorry.)

There is a high level of aggressive competition between males, with constant theft of desirable decorations, and damage to the rival's bower, to put him out of the contest for a while. And it is a bitter contest, with the less successful males not mating at all. 

Some of the plainer species have a brilliant pink or lilac erectile crest, which is normally hidden in the plumage of the crown. 

Western Bowerbird Chlamydera guttata, Olive Pink Botanic Gardens in Alice Springs, central Australia.
This is the most arid-loving bowerbird, found in the central and western deserts.

It seems that the quality of the bower really is telling her something about the quality of its owner. Perhaps surprisingly, a study on Satin Bowerbirds found a high correlation between the quality of the bower (using four defined features) and his health with regard to external parasites, plus his size. They also found that a more intense body colour (measured by reflectance spectrometry) was a predictor of low internal parasite loads and healthy feather growth rate, as well as body size again.

Satin Bowerbird male, National Botanic Gardens, Canberra.

The display is frenetic and riveting. In the case of the Satin Bowerbird he goes into a trance-like frenzy of display, his violet eyes bulging, his necked arched and wings alternately flicking rapidly and held stiffly above his back. With a favoured item from the display platform in his beak, he lowers his bill and raises his tail, standing on tip toes, all the while buzzing and clicking more like a machine than a bird. After some time of this he suddenly goes quiet, stepping partly out of sight behind the walls of the bower, showing her just his head and the object. At this stage he often erupts into virtuosic mimicry of other birds.

There is a long apprenticeship to get to this level of panache. In the Satin Bowerbird, and others, it takes six years for a male to attain his adult plumage; until then he resembles the females, and builds scores of bowers, probably all of which will be destroyed by his peers and elders.

Female or immature male Satin Bowerbirds, Canberra.

Sixteen of the 20 species build a bower; the three more primitive catbirds do not do so, but form monogamous pairs for breeding. The Tooth-billed Bowerbird Scenopoeetes dentirostris of the Queensland Wet Tropics uses a cleared display area, but does not construct.

Spotted Catbird Ailuroedus maculosus, Millaa Millaa Falls, north Queensland.
This primitive rainforest bowerbird is one of the two bowerbird species found in both Australia and New Guinea.
The name comes from the hair-raising yowling calls, which can also sound disturbingly like
a human baby crying.

The bower-builders are exclusively polygynous, with a male attempting to lure as many females as possible by his bower and accompanying display. Should she be impressed she enters the bower or mounts the platform and mating takes place there. From then on she's on her own; she's already built her nest and all brooding and chick-raising is down to her. 

Let's just end with a few bowerbird portraits, including a couple I've not yet illustrated.

 

Regent Bowerbird Sericulus chrysocephalus, Goolawah NP, north coast NSW.
This is primarily a rainforest bird from near-coastal Queensland and NSW.
Thomas Skottowe, supervisor of the Newcastle convict colony, collaborated with
convict artist Richard Browne in a portfolio of bird paintings, including this one.
Skottowe was apparently a fan of the gambling, laudanum-addicted, philandering alcoholic
the Prince Regent who went on to become George IV, and dedicated the bird to him.
It's a bit more complicated than that, but that's the gist of it; the story that later arose
that these were somehow George's 'colours' was a total fabrication and wasn't suggested
by Skottowe. Later the similarly coloured Regent Parrot (like the bowerbird, only the male)
and Regent Honeyeater were named after the bowerbird. This truly is a gorgeous
bird which deserves a much better name!

Great Bowerbird, Croydon, north Queensland.
There can be something slightly unsettling about the intensity of scrutiny applied by this bird,
the largest of the bowerbirds.

Green Catbird Ailuroedus crassirostris (in the rain), Bangalee, near Nowra, New South Wales.
This, the second Australian catbird, is found well to the south of the range of the tropical Spotted Catbird.

Spotted Bowerbird Chlamydera maculata, Bladensburg NP, central Queensland.
This beautifully patterned bird is one of the two inland species.

Western Bowerbirds, Olive Pink Botanic Gardens.
Once lumped with the Spotted Bowerbird, it is a more richly coloured bird and found to the west.

Bowerbirds, a special part of Australia.

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Longreach Waterhole, Northern Territory

I have just been advised - December 2018 - that this lovely spot is no longer accessible. Following repeated disrespectful and antisocial behaviour by some campers the traditional owners have decided to close the camping area indefinitely to protect its significant values, discussed below. It is sad on all levels. And the perpetrators will probably never know what they have done, to the area and to fellow travellers. (For more detail and a contact number, see fourth Comment below.

 

[Apologies to my Queensland readers - there is a lovely Longreach Waterhole in central Queensland too, but that's a story for another day.]

We were on the way home after a blissful month on the road in northern Australia, heading down the Stuart Highway that bisects central Australia from north to south coasts, hoping - albeit with limited optimism - for just one more night under the stars before the final serious push. We found favourable mention of Longreach Waterhole on line and opted to give it a go; it was an excellent decision!

Views of Longreach Waterhole, above and below.
Some 12 sinuous kilometres long in Newcastle Creek, it is not possible to do justice to it in one photo.

 

Access is from the highway just north of the little town of Elliott; take the sandy track to the west immediately north of the first cattle grid and fence out of town. You probably won't want to spend a lot of time in Elliott, but you can get basic supplies there.

Elliott is over 700k south of Darwin, so it's well into the semi-arid zone.

Longreach Waterhole is part of the much vaster ephemeral Lake Woods, which in rare flood events can cover 125,000 hectares, and is listed by Birdlife International (a worldwide collaboration of bird conservation and research organisations) as one of their Important Bird Areas (IBAs). The whole of Lake Woods is managed as pastoral lease but, within the Lake Woods IBA, Longreach Waterhole Protected Area is managed by the Northern Territory Parks and Wildlife Service in consultation with the lessees. To be honest I don't fully understand the details of it, but one of the spin-offs is that it is accessible to the public and camping is free, albeit with no facilities. (Actually there is one toilet block where the access track meets the waterhole, but if you want to get away from people - which we see as a must - then you won't want to camp there.)

As you would expect from the discussion of Lake Wood, the surrounds of the waterhole are floodplain, which had been wet, if not inundated, not long before our visit.

The floodplain is dominated by flood-tolerant (or rather flood-reliant) species,
notably Coolabah Eucalyptus coolabah, which features notably in Australian folklore and songs, especially
the unofficial national song, Waltzing Matilda.
It is fair to say however that most Australians are unfamiliar with the tree itself.

Coolabah in typical floodplain habitat.

 

Straggly but very tough Bauhinia Lysiphyllum cunninghamii (family Fabaceae)
is another flood  plain specialist near arid land waterholes.

Most of the recent ephemeral growth on the floodplain had died back, but one herb was still flowering - and puzzled me.

Any assistance gratefully received!

All inland Australian waterways are dominated by just one species, the mighty River Red Gum E. camaldulensis, which can take long-term inundation, whereas the Coolabahs need to dry out more often, so are found further back from the water.

River Red Gum glowing at sunset, Longreach Waterhole.

It was, as I mentioned, towards the end of an exhilarating but also tiring trip, and we had a lot of driving coming up, so for most of the brief 24 hours we had there we were content to let life come to us, but there was a gratifying amount of that. Some of it was on the flood plain.

White-winged Triller pair Lalage tricolor. The male, on the left, is moulting into his breeding plumage.
They were part of a loose flock feeding on the plain, doubtless migrating south to breed (we were there
in early September), and it was not too far-fetched to ponder that we might meet up with them again at
home in Canberra! Trillers are small cuckoo-shrikes.

Grey-crowned Babbler Pomatostomus temporalis, foraging for insects in rotting wood,
above and below.

 

Immature Pied Butcherbird Cracticus nigrogularis. When adult it will be glossy black and white,
and be responsible for my favourite bird song of all!

Most of the activity however, was centred on the waterhole; despite it being only early spring the temperature climbed to well over 30 degrees. A parade of smaller birds used the branches above our camp to launch bathing forays and insect-catching sallies.

Rufous-throated Honeyeater Conopophila rufogularis, above and below.
This is a common little bird across the tropics, but I was a bit surprised to see it
this far south and in such an arid situation (though it does like waterside habitats).

 

White-plumed Honeyeater Ptilotula (formerly Lichenostomus) penicillata;this on the other hand is an abundant and domineering honeyeater of the Red Gums throughout
inland Australia. Indeed it is only when we get high into the tropics that this species drops out
and other honeyeater species have much of a chance to share the bounty of this rich habitat.

Rainbow Bee-eater Merops ornatus with dragonfly.
Probably a male, with thin tail streamer, but one has been broken off.

On the far bank (at least 100 metres away) water birds rested, keeping their distance from campers.

Black-necked Stork Ephippiorhynchus asiaticus, Australasian Darters Anhinga novaehollandiaeand Pacific Black Ducks Anas superciliosus.

Black-necked Stork, probably a young female (dark eye, not bright yellow,
and legs only pink, not bright red).

Magpie Geese Anseranas semipalmata, dozing.
Primitive waterbirds, the only members of their family; abundant in the wetter north, but great wanderers.

And constantly the waters themselves and the airways above them were rushing with activity.

Pied Cormorants Phalacrocorax varius; the traffic up and down the waterhole
in the lanes just above water level was intense.

Pied Cormorants fishing with Australian Pelicans Pelecanus conspicillatus.

Pelican fishing in shallow water, right in front of us.

Pelicans catching a thermal to move on, perhaps for hundreds of kilometres...

... higher...

... and higher yet.

Cormorants (and a sole pelican) flying along the waterhole.

Female Australasian Darter soaring.

Glossy Ibis Plegadis falcinellus flying.
Widespread in Australia and Africa, this pretty little ibis can also be found scattered in the Americas,
Europe and Asia.

Caspian Tern Hydroprogne caspia.This is the world's biggest tern, found across much of the earth.
As it has done here, it can move far inland on occasions.

And all that was in less than 24 hours, with limited effort on our part. We look forward to stopping off there again one day; you really should consider it too...

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On This Day, 29 June; Rembert Dodoens and Dodonaeas

Rembert Dodoens is probably not a name that features regularly in your life, and fair enough too, but he made a contribution to the Australian botanical landscape in particular (plus quite a few others in a more minor way), albeit with no intention of doing so. Indeed, having been born on this day, 29 June in 1517, he could have had no concept of 'Australia'. 

Rembert Dodoens, courtesy University of Mannheim; date and artist apparently unknown.

He began life in Mechelen, Flanders (now Belgium) and was clearly a bright lad; I doubted it when I first read that he began his university studies at Leuven (Louvain) at the age of 13, but several separate sources seem to agree on this. He graduated at age 18, when most modern students are just embarking on their studies, in medicine, geography and cosmography (the last being the science of mapping the universe, but please don't ask me to explain more precisely). He became the great herbalist of his time, which also meant a doctor. He spent 13 years as the court physician to the Holy Roman Emperor in Vienna, and ended his life as Professor of Medicine at Leiden. 

He authored several books, but by far his most famous and influential was his Cruydeboeck (ie 'herb book') which offered one of the earliest attempts at a classification, albeit only 'use-based'. Its value at the time however was that it summarised all known medicinal uses, contemporary and historical. It was translated into French as Histoire des Plantes, and into English as A new herbal, or historie of plants. Later Dodoens translated it into Latin, which led to it being regarded as a basic herbal text for the next 200 years. Other than the Bible, it was the most translated work of its time. 

Dodonaea boroniifolia, Tallong, New South Wales.
The papery three-winged fruits are characteristic and diagnostic of the genus.

It was in acknowledgment of that that Linnaeus named the genus Dodonaea for him in 1738. (As a curious taxonomic aside, the official credit for the genus name goes to Philip Miller in his Gardeners Dictionary Abridged Edition 4, 1754, who cites the earlier Linnaeus publication of the name. The  correct name for any species of plant is the first one published since 1753 – ie since the publication of Linnaeus' great Species Plantarum, in which he listed every plant name published in his two-name system that he knew of. The implication is that he left Dodonaea out of his opus - or perhaps he had only published the genus, and not a two-name species, so his name was unavailable to Species Plantarum? If you know the answer to this conundrum I'd be grateful.) It's not clear where Miller got his material, but it seems that D. viscosa was already being grown in England by then, which would explain why he published it in a gardening dictionary.

Dodonaea is the largest genus in the world-wide family Sapindaceae, which also includes maples, rambutans, tamarinds and lychees. The seventy or so species are all found in Australia, but one, D. viscosa, a highly variable species, has spread throughout much of the world - not by human intercession as has been widely believed and reported, but in the last couple of million years. Presumably the small wind-distributed seeds made this possible but it does seem remarkable. 

D. viscosa, Inca Track, southern Peruvian Andes;
Europe is the only unfrozen continent where this remarkable species does not grown naturally.

D. viscosa fruit, Great Sandy Desert, Western Australia.

D. viscosa immature fruit, Black Mountain NR, Canberra.

In Australia many other genera in the family are trees, both in rainforests and arid lands. 

Here members of the genus Dodonaea (which is widespread, common and familiar) are known as hopbushes, as the bitter fruits were used in place of hops in beer-brewing. (I'm pretty sure that this is true, though some sources suggest the name only reflects an apparent similarity to hop fruit.) I have read that they were also used in baking in place of yeast, but I can't imagine how that might have worked or what effect it might have had on the flavour of the bread!

The flowers are wind-pollinated, and have no petals or nectar. 

D. viscosa flowers, Gawler Ranges NP, South Australia.

I'm sorry that Rembert Dodeons didn't ever see or even hear of the plant named for him. I hope he'd have appreciated them; after all, even if he was only interested in their utility, he would surely, as an inhabitant of what was to become Belgium, valued their contribution to beer in the Antipodes!

Here are a couple more, to end with. I hope you've enjoyed meeting them and the man who unwittingly gave them their name. If so, you might like to raise a glass to him to acknowledge his birthday.

D. lobulata, Whyalla Conservation Park, South Australia.

D. stenozyga, Yalata, south-western South Australia.

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