Tradegy in Possum Valley

Disaster has befallen the two Golden Bowerbirds whose bowers were easy to find.  One bower was less than 100m from the homestead but the essential horizontal branch where the male hopes to lure the female has rotted away.  5 years work went into making his bower and the heart of it was the horizontal stick around which the sticks were most carefully arranged, and where he puts his trophies of lime-green lichen.

The other bower just off the red track, was even more impressive in the classic shape of two towers.  That one had a tree fall directly across the horizontal branch and mostly demolished one tower.  Of all the rotten luck.  It must be like having a bachelor pad, but the bed destroyed and no hope of replacing it.  The male plays no part in nest making or rearing the young.  His sole purpose in life is to lure a female and have his wicked way with her.  But she will give his life-long efforts the closest scrutiny, and canvass all available bowers before bestowing her favours.

Like trying to woo Cinderella, but instead of a glittering palace, all you have to offer is a tent and a bed of hay.  I think both bower birds have accepted the total loss of their lifelong assets, and with the best spirit they can muster, have started again.  The bird with the rotten stick in his bower has not added any of the lichen trophies.  I think the season has started but the old bower has been abandoned.  He has started to build a bower about 15m away though I think he has a long way to go before being able to impress a female.  I don’t think he will be able to explain “I had this really great pad, but it fell down”.  Wouldn’t even work in the human context.  I feel his pain.  If he has the tenacity to keep plugging away, he might have a presentable bower after about 3 years of celibacy.  In the animal kingdom, I don’t think there is such a thing as a ‘charity fuck’.

 

I think he has learned the importance of the horizontal stick.  It is stout, nearly as thick as your wrist, and it is a live vine.  It will not rot away.  These vines can trail 500m through the trees.  Bowerbirds certainly do have instincts to build to a bower, but I think from my observations, it takes refinements through experience and checking out the opposition.  I have followed science through my education and inclination, and I am aware that reality is always more complex than the scientific models constructed to explain them.  Assumptions and simplifications are made all along the way to make the models susceptible to mathematical analysis.  Real life is just too messy.  And I think the behaviour of birds is more involved than I had imagined.  The other male whose bower was destroyed by a fallen tree took another tack.

Instead of relocating,  The other bird decided to build on existing assets and use the remaining tower and start a twin tower beside it.  He had the fortune that the all important horizontal stick extended past his bower.  Smart choice.

Half the reconstruction effort required by our first bird.  The tower on the right is the remaining structure and he has started another tower on the left..  I think he fancies his chances because he has decorated the new bower with the prized green lichen.

I wish both these beautiful birds success with their different strategies.  If they have no luck, I doubt it will materially effect the population.  I know there are several more males with bowers on the property, though I would be hard pressed to locate them again.  I doubt the females have such difficulties.

So the tragedy I alluded to in the title was a personal tragedy for the males.  Not a threat to the species.  Those of us with failed relationships in human affairs are prone to grasp some defining theme or moment, and a fallen tree, quite beyond our control, would be a convenient excuse to explain our failings.  Birds don’t do that.  They pick up the pieces and try again.