Monday, July 9, 2012

>Chlamydera nuchalis (Great Bowerbird)

Great Bowerbird


Great Bowerbird
Conservation status

Least Concern (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:Animalia
Phylum:Chordata
Class:Aves
Order:Passeriformes
Family:Ptilonorhynchidae
Genus:Chlamydera
Species:C. nuchalis
Binomial name
Chlamydera nuchalis
Jardine & Selby, 1830
Chlamydera nuchalis - Mount Carbine.jpg

Bower
The Great Bowerbird 
Chlamydera nuchalis is a common and conspicuous resident of northern
 Australia, from the area around Broome across the Top End to Cape York Peninsula and as far south as Mount Isa. Favoured habitat is a broad range of forest and woodland, and the margins of vine forests, monsoon forest, and mangrove swamps.
As with most members of the bowerbird family, breeding considerations dominate the lifecycle: females nest inconspicuously and raise their young alone, while the males spend most of the year building, maintaining, improving, defending, and above all displaying from their bowers. Only a male with a successful bower can attract mates.
The Great Bowerbird is the largest of the bowerbird family and is 33 to 38 cm long and fawny grey in colour. Males have a small but conspicuous pink crest on the nape of the neck.

The Bower

The male builds the largest bower of all bowerbirds. It is a twin-walled avenue-type bower approximately 1 metre long and 45cm high. It is typically located under a shrub or leafy branch. The ends of the bower are scattered with white and green objects - stones, bones, shells and leaves and small man-made objects such as plastic and bottle caps. Within the bower itself is sometimes placed clear glass.
Uniquely among bowerbirds, groups of young males will attend a single bower concurrently, "practising" their bower-building skills prior to establishing their own bower for mating purposes.

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