[Art] Flame Bowerbird as Totem
Jun. 14th, 2020 08:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
moonvoiceThe Flame Bowerbird is for the Expansive Animal Oracle: Unusuals edition. I wanted a bowerbird because they have a really powerful, interesting, creative energy not really shared by any other animal in the same way (except maybe humans). They are literally capable of artistic expression and architecture. The Flame Bowerbird was additionally fascinating, the more I researched bowerbirds, the more I learned that the bowers may have developed as a way of giving females more agency and helping them avoid forced copulation. As a result, male bowerbirds are unusually sensitive to the expressions of discomfort that a female indicates during courtship, and it is the *less* intense courtship displays that are more likely to be successful, and not the intense or aggressive displays.
Talking about consent and birds and mating is obviously a fraught arena, but the fact of the matter is, bowerbirds evolved things like the bower - particularly the avenue bower - in part to make it harder for males to force themselves on females, and give her more choice, and have become incredibly sensitive to her communication cues as a result.
If nature can manage it, why can't humans?
*
Flame Bowerbird || Sericulus ardens || Etsy
Keywords:
Accepting and receiving love and gifts. Going the extra mile. Above and beyond. Beginnings. The first flame. The first step. Making something for others. Positive materialism. Care of possessions. Homemaking. Romance and courtship. Wooing. Art and architecture. Creating your love. Externalising your love. Consent. Complexity.
Description:
The flame bowerbird (Sericulus ardens), also known as the golden bowerbird is the most brilliantly coloured of all the bowerbirds, with flame coloured plumage. It’s endemic to the mountainous rainforests of New Guinea. Despite being striking in appearance, there is little known about them. The courtship has only been filmed in the last two decades, and they are often living in impenetrable rainforest.
Like most bowerbirds, the male creates a bower with sticks on two sides, in an avenue shape, designed to draw the female through the middle, it will sometimes be decorated with objects, though not as often as other bowerbirds will object-decorate their bowers. The male performs a complex courtship display that both shows off the bower, as well as his own brilliant plumage. Males will spend hours practicing their dances, as well as maintaining their bowers, and arranging objects and twigs for maximum impact.
Males will usually decorate bowers with individual biases for what they prefer or find most aesthetic or significant. The most popular males with the best bowers will often mate with many females, and those males who aren’t up to par often do not mate at all. Additionally, male bowerbirds are very sensitive to female signs of discomfort or disinterest by modifying and downscaling the intensity of their courtship behaviour, which suggests the bower partially evolved as a way of giving the female the chance to escape forced copulation. The chance of successful mating is not predicated on male courtship intensity, but instead the bower itself, and the male’s ability to be sensitive to the female’s responses to him.
Females are olive brown in colouration, and after visiting several bowers and selecting a mate, incubates a single egg and raises the chick on her own. Bowerbird eggs are often twice the weight of similar songbirds around the same size. The flame bowerbird, like other bowerbirds, has among the longest lifespan of any songbird, living for well over a decade and sometimes into their late twenties. They are excellent vocal mimics, copying humans, mammals, waterfalls, other bird species and more. Some researchers believe that bowerbirds are the most behaviourally complex species of bird.
Talking about consent and birds and mating is obviously a fraught arena, but the fact of the matter is, bowerbirds evolved things like the bower - particularly the avenue bower - in part to make it harder for males to force themselves on females, and give her more choice, and have become incredibly sensitive to her communication cues as a result.
If nature can manage it, why can't humans?
*
Flame Bowerbird || Sericulus ardens || Etsy
Keywords:
Accepting and receiving love and gifts. Going the extra mile. Above and beyond. Beginnings. The first flame. The first step. Making something for others. Positive materialism. Care of possessions. Homemaking. Romance and courtship. Wooing. Art and architecture. Creating your love. Externalising your love. Consent. Complexity.
Description:
The flame bowerbird (Sericulus ardens), also known as the golden bowerbird is the most brilliantly coloured of all the bowerbirds, with flame coloured plumage. It’s endemic to the mountainous rainforests of New Guinea. Despite being striking in appearance, there is little known about them. The courtship has only been filmed in the last two decades, and they are often living in impenetrable rainforest.
Like most bowerbirds, the male creates a bower with sticks on two sides, in an avenue shape, designed to draw the female through the middle, it will sometimes be decorated with objects, though not as often as other bowerbirds will object-decorate their bowers. The male performs a complex courtship display that both shows off the bower, as well as his own brilliant plumage. Males will spend hours practicing their dances, as well as maintaining their bowers, and arranging objects and twigs for maximum impact.
Males will usually decorate bowers with individual biases for what they prefer or find most aesthetic or significant. The most popular males with the best bowers will often mate with many females, and those males who aren’t up to par often do not mate at all. Additionally, male bowerbirds are very sensitive to female signs of discomfort or disinterest by modifying and downscaling the intensity of their courtship behaviour, which suggests the bower partially evolved as a way of giving the female the chance to escape forced copulation. The chance of successful mating is not predicated on male courtship intensity, but instead the bower itself, and the male’s ability to be sensitive to the female’s responses to him.
Females are olive brown in colouration, and after visiting several bowers and selecting a mate, incubates a single egg and raises the chick on her own. Bowerbird eggs are often twice the weight of similar songbirds around the same size. The flame bowerbird, like other bowerbirds, has among the longest lifespan of any songbird, living for well over a decade and sometimes into their late twenties. They are excellent vocal mimics, copying humans, mammals, waterfalls, other bird species and more. Some researchers believe that bowerbirds are the most behaviourally complex species of bird.
