Bowers, Bedrooms, and Bird watching

When we woke up in our Rain Forest unit, five Pademelons were nibbling on our front yard. These are small kangaroos whose name comes from two Aboriginal words meaning “Little" and "Big Foot.” After our breakfast we went bird watching with people from Germany and the US who flew clear to AU for the sole purpose of doing just that! The picture of the rather crow-like-looking bird is the male Satin Bowerbird and the one to his right is an immature male. (It takes 7 years for the male to reach adulthood.) The adult male fastidiously clears an area of ground and builds a bedroom (bower) by carefully leaning sticks together to form an arch (called an avenue and is pictured just behind the center leaf that's pointing down). Then he decorates the ground around by strewing blue objects on the North side of the bower. The old fashioned guys used blue flower petals, feathers, shells, and berries. As you see, the current trendy Bowerbirds are into plastic—bottle caps, straws, ink pens, child's toy car--anything blue. The Satin's cousin, the Regent Bowerbird is more brightly colored. (Male with yellow and female to his left). He seems to depend more upon his looks to attract a mate. His bower was a hastily thrown-together lean-to of 3 or 4 sticks. God made His creation as unique in the animal and bird kingdom as He did with us humans. (By the way, we also took "natural" pictures in the woods, but don't have such high-powered cameras as the true watchers) A lot is missed, though, in not hearing the melodious sounds of all of the birds we saw. The male Catbird seems to say "Where are you?" and the female answers, "Here I are"--try saying those words and a cat meow at the same time and you will get the idea! The Whipbird here with the white on his neck area sounds like he is cracking a whip and his mate-for-life says "I'm coming!" (Just like in our home. :))