Satin Bowerbird

The Satin Bowerbird is a striking songbird in which the fully mature male displays deep, glossy blue-black plumage with an iridescent satin sheen, set off by vivid violet-blue eyes and a pale bill. Females and immature males, which can take up to seven years to acquire full adult plumage, are quite different: olive-green above with heavily scalloped grey-and-white underparts, making the sexes and age classes look almost like separate species.

The male is renowned for building and maintaining an elaborate avenue-shaped bower of sticks, which he decorates almost exclusively with blue objects, from flowers and feathers to, in modern times, discarded plastic and clothes pegs, using the structure and its collection of ornaments purely as a stage for courtship display rather than as a nest.

Key field marks

• Adult male: glossy, satiny blue-black plumage overall with violet-blue eyes
• Female/immature male: olive-green above with heavily scalloped grey-and-white underparts
• Pale, slightly hooked bill
• Males build a stick avenue bower decorated with blue objects

Similar species

• Regent Bowerbird male is black and golden-yellow rather than glossy blue-black.
• Female Satin Bowerbirds can resemble female Regent or Green Catbirds but are best told by range, subtle plumage pattern, and behavior near a bower.

Habitat

Inhabits rainforest, wet eucalypt forest, and forest edges, and readily visits gardens near forest in parts of its range.

Range

Found in two disjunct populations along the east coast of Australia: from southeastern Queensland to Victoria, and a separate population in the Wet Tropics of far north Queensland.

Migration

Mostly sedentary, with some local and altitudinal movement outside the breeding season.

Behavior

Males spend much of the breeding season building, maintaining, and decorating an avenue-shaped bower of sticks, arranging blue and sometimes yellow objects around it and performing an energetic courtship display for visiting females; females alone build the nest and raise young.

Voice

A harsh, wheezy chattering song, often incorporating mimicry of other birds and even mechanical sounds, given especially at the bower.

Feeding

Eats a wide variety of fruit, insects, leaves, and flowers, foraged in the forest canopy and on the ground.

Nesting

The female builds a simple, shallow cup nest of twigs high in a tree, entirely unrelated to the male's display bower; lays 1-3 cream to buff eggs with darker streaking.