How Bowerbirds Get Laid

Bowerbirds are pretty romantic. Well, at least they try. The males don’t merely strut around waving their feathers to attract a lady’s attention. If they want to get laid, they must build a house and fill it with nice things first.

The elaborate courtship ritual of these pigeon-sized Australian birds is detailed in Discover Magazine’s July/August issue from research conducted by Deakin University ecologist John Endler.

Endler reports that a male bowerbird builds an elaborate long corridor (a “bower”), using twigs, that opens up to a courtyard filled with precious objects. He spends hours every day collecting shells, pebbles, bone bits, trash, bottle caps and plastic figurines and painstakingly arranges up to 5,000 pieces of junk for his future potential mate.

And you know how men manicure themselves “down there” to look bigger? Similarly, the male bowerbird uses forced perspective, arranging objects by size so the smaller pieces are closer to the entrance and the larger pieces farther away. He stands upon his trash heap, holding a trinket in his mouth. As she makes her way down the corridor, he seems much bigger than he truly is. She’s mesmerized, enchanted, and as she inspects his stuff, he finds the opportune moment, mounts, and love is consummated, cloaked in illusion.