a remarkable afternoon

I hope you stay to the end of the movie. Even if you don't like subtitles.

I finally got the camera in the right place and the camera filled the 16gb SD card in about an hour and a half. Please don't say "get a bigger card." It has taken me enough time to inspect and assemble the first 24 minutes of recording!

The camera had been recording 60 seconds and then ten second interval before checking for movement. Now it's set to record for 3 minutes then 10 second interval; more coherence to the story.

I have not enhanced or cropped film in any way this time. Straight as from the camera.

This time no voice-over. The birds, who are entirely in charge of the performance, can be heard without interruption.

This is not a cartoon with fast action. It's a record of life. If your life is too short to watch it all, consider skipping forward to places where I've put subtitle notes and be sure to see the end, aware of the amount of time and patience, imagination, energy and song and dance Odimbar has put into his performance for a whole half hour!

At points there seem to be real expressions of emotion.

You can enlarge by clicking on the square device in the bottom right of the film.

You can use a device in the same corner to get back to the whole page. 

bower demolished and rebuilt...

... or did I imagine it?

On Monday 24, after walking the dog, I decided I should get pictures from the field camera, which I'd forgotten to do at night. So I brought the SD card in at about 9am and was delayed putting the back till about 10... when I discovered that in the intervening period the bower had been smashed. This happens, male birds are rivals, they steal from each other, they fight over territory. But it was a great shock to discover. How was the bird... did this blog thus end??

I put the card in the camera and moved it to a new position.. which [sigh] was plainly not a good position because it failed to record, sun in its eye, the beginning of reconstruction of the bower.

SO, the movie for the day begins with a photo of the bower as was before destroyed, next as it was by lunchtime when the movement-sensing camera succeeded in recording. I did not know that when I moved the camera to a better location a little later. There follow 13 minutes of clips after 4pm, with more building and interaction with other birds. At the moment the camera is set to record 60 seconds with 20 second gaps before sensing for movement again. I will review this, consider longer periods of recording in a day or so.

I have placed some more links under 'research' in the right column, below the map. I am still in search of evidence that others have studied the complex relations between young and old and between genders, determinate or otherwise, over time, not just at sexy springtime... I said "determnate or otherwise" because if we know that in Homo sapiens there are more intersex people than redheads, perhaps we should leave that door open in seeking to understand bird behaviour too. And we are seeing complex interactions.

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Here first is a little infrared movie recorded just after dark. This is the creature who drives Ralph the Spoodle insane, yelling and yelling when it goes near the hens. Something must be done!

and this is the main movie of the day...

24 April: first film with fixed camera

[second movie added 25 April]

I set the camera up facing the bower at about 4.30pm on 22 April and got the SD card out of it this morning at about 9am, having forgotten to do that in the night.

Downloaded 27gb of movie at about 250mb a minute, camera recording for 60 seconds when some creature moves, 20 second gap or until activated again. It has taken me much of the day to produce this little movie of 12 minutes. :-)

After an hour I went out to reinstall the camera card and was alarmed to see the bower smashed to scattered sticks. So set about making a movie thinking this would be the last. But by the middle of the day Odimbar had built it again. And at 4.30pm 24 April his singing is coming in the window.

So this is just a bit of what I already have downloaded: from 4.30pm 22 April tojust after 8am next day. You can see the time in the lower right corner of the film.

A reminder that this is autumn here and as everyone knows, male Satin Bowerbirds build their bowers, in which to court women, in SPRING. We wait to see what happens in winter. And we speculate on roles: clearly some juvenile(s) of female(s) work on the bower too. Time to review gender roles among bowerbirds too?

and for the rest of the day

23 April 2017 - day 10

The counting of days from 1 to 10 arose from our days of observation. But becomes irrelevant. The bower is perhaps 20 days old and from this point we simply have regard for the date.

We are in a temperate climate, south of Sydney Australia, near the coast. Autumn weather at the moment, days persistently balmy with temperatures 14 to 23 celsius with occasional excursions above of below.

If the bowerbird is building because it's mistaken the season we should know by next month.

We now have a camera in place in the garden which begins to film when there is movement. Put in place, attached to an old chair frame, end of yesterday, 22 April. We can lift the chair away at the end of the day today (without fumbling about with the camera near the bower). If you don't hear from me again it will be because I'm drowning in hours of recording!

This is the setup: bower on the right, camera on the chairback on the left, adjacent to the water bowl.

Bower to right, on the left the water bowl on concrete block, dark green boxy camera on back of steel chair.

and here is the handheld movie from 22 April, from the bedroom window from which the photos above are also taken.

Day 7

Day 6 was overcast, uncertain weather. The were bird calls all round the house. But I saw no action at the bower. This perhaps because I stayed in the dark dealing with migraine and meniere's attack. And writing, elsewhere, about Korea, in some fury.

But I was also reviewing whether this curiosity of a bower with a cast of many in autumn might be an anomaly caused by the weather. It has been for the most part, balmy weather for the last week or so, overnight around 14c, daytime 23-25c. This in contrast to the end of February and early March which was dark and squally, if not as cool as now. So dark our hens stopped laying. (I have another explanation for that: we moved their accommodation.) But it is important to keep that explanation open.

But not today! I was entirely caught up, with two others, working in the garden, so no movie. But there was great activity around the bower. So questions remain open:

• Is the weather falsely suggesting it is spring... in which case what follows?
• Is Odimbar going to maintain his performance for months... is there any normality to such?
• Who is the Yuthiwim? I do not want to anthropomorphise or relate to any human culture, but there is a bird in the plot with a special relationship. I believe that after this week I can say it is one bird not a string of different birds. I believe, from plumage and behaviour, that this bird is not part of the juvenile pack. Is Odimbar her child? Is Odimbar older than we thought? Is this a bird from another spring time? Is there other observed history of such a female role? 
• Will we keep seeing The Pretender perform? Is this a prelude to challenge? Or will he be driven off to find his own territory? And... why is he doing this? What prompts a bowerbird to perform? Does... speculative question... the sight of the bower and the opportunity to perform prompt a bird of a certain disposition and a certain stage of development to get in there... and does the performance lead on to further biological change and development of adult male feathering?
• We know that the adult male satin bowerbird not only has to maintain his bower but also must patrol and secure his whole territory. Will there be challenge from any other mature bowerbird? In what form? 
• A person left a blue bottle top on my letterbox, seen early today. Later it was gone, perhaps to Odimbar's bower, perhaps elsewhere (to the postman?). Certainly early this morning I saw a green bird steal a blue bottletop from Odimbar's collection. For whose bower, where?

I have just read Graeme Chapman's observations against which I need to check my own,

In suitable habitat bowers may average five per sq. km. and be spaced roughly 300 metres apart, so each male is well within earshot of his neighbours. In each territory, there is usually a number of green birds, either females (black bills) or subordinate males (pale bills) that may try to establish rudimentary bowers; these subordinate males don't acquire blue adult plumage until their fifth or sixth year. The main bower in a territory is maintained by a single blue male. That is where he courts and finally mates with his females (he mates with several) and it is the centrepiece of the territory. There is fierce competition at these bowers - neighbouring males will attempt to destroy the bower and pinch the sticks or ornaments, taking them to their own bowers and young males also come to try to display and steal things as well. Usually a new bower is constructed each year, close to the previous one - the site is traditional - it may be used by a succession of different owners. Decorations are mainly blue, violet, purple or greenish yellow. The blue tail feathers of Crimson Rosellas are a favourite in the wild, but near habitation all sorts of plastic objects are collected. At one stage near Sydney birds were removing the blue plastic rings off the top of milk bottles and getting their heads stuck in the ring, so the makers kindly changed the colour of the ring - end of problem.

Day 5

This morning a flurry of green birds, Teehoops, came in just after 7 and in response from stage left (as I look upon it), entered Odimbar. His presence fairly quickly saw them off today. There remained Eastern Spinebills, a Black and White Flycatcher, wrens and wattlebirds, but no interaction between these and the bowerbird.

"I'm only barely tolerating you, you at the window."

Then, as I sat and watched and felt a little guilty about a rude movie I'd made yesterday in which I sarcastically suggested he was a thumb-twiddling male, he set to work. He came and went with fine new straws and proceeded to fit them into his bower. I was hurrying to go out. No video.

When I came back near 11, the bird in the photo was in charge of the scene. But despite my wearing nondescript dark colours and arriving quietly at my window, he/she saw me in in an instant and flew to the left and into the big magnolia.

Then, a bit later, to my far left, events in the movie below. Open to interpretation. This is my interpetation: I at first thought he, Odimbar, was trying to drive off a bird, but I shifted to think this is Yuthiwin, the bird also in the still shot above. They are having fun, or one of them at least is having fun. She acts like all this is her territory. Perhaps it has been her territory from before Odimbar became dominant male of the bower. We did not see the beginnings of the bower, I don't know if people get to see that beginning. What is the role of the Yuthiwin in that beginning? Who makes the start, who prepares the dance space? ... Another question: we have assumed that Odimbar is newly adult-fledged, this being a new bower. Or other interpretation possible?

The photo above is a little to the right of centre in window view. The movie is to the extreme left of my window view. In between is the 10 metre high bulky dark mass of the Port Wine Magnolia with its many roosting and nesting birds. The Yuthiwin lives there.

The movies of day 4

The Pretender:

Today there was a very beautiful green-brown bird of alpha male proportions (who we shall call the Pretender) who acted for a while, in Odimbar's absence, as if the bower was his, with an audience if Teehoops (teenage hooligan peers), perhaps also females but no evidently charmed individual.

Which brings into my mind as mentioned earlier the question of the biological and the psychosocial triggers for conversion to satin black bird status. When Odimbar flew back, with a new blue bottle top, the Teehoops and the Pretender*** jump away but demonstrate that they would have the crown if they could. With about 30 seconds of reading instructions I've brightened the video and provided voice-over using iMovie.  Note added two days later: there is a bird in the bower while The Pretender does his dance. I refer to this as a juvenile in the voice-over. But I think that bird is not a juvenile but the Yuthiwim, going about her housekeeping. 

*** I am using the word Pretender in the everyday sense but also in the sense of he who claims a title not his (or her, but most of the human pretenders are male. Wikipedia offers a list of current pretenders in our own species.

Yuthiwin: "You'd think I was 'is Mother!"
All the world knows that male satin bowerbirds are super cleverpants at building super-colossal bowers. But what if someone else does the hard work?

and a little extra on roles

Fourth day: the cast and the scene and the observer

Odimbar, Easter Sunday morning, in his cathedral, from my window.
Watching you watching me watching you.

As I sit in the living room to write this on laptop, the slightly quacky "I'm busy" noises of Odimbar filter in the window. While I was out in the front a while ago he fell silent and then when I went on the road (photos below) he went high in a tree and produced a call which for now I suggest means "there's an old geezer over there, watch out, but low risk".

Yesterday and today reveal a pattern of life.

In the morning, especially two to three hours after sunrise, currently around 9am, there is a gang around the bower, Teehoops (teenage hooligan peers) who haven't gone mature, gender unknown, though it is possible to our inexperienced eyes that some of these green birds are older women. Come to goggle at Odimbar who has plainly gone crazy, perhaps even old. There are some who steal blue objects.

Today there was a very beautiful green-brown bird of alpha male proportions (whom we shall call the Pretender) who acted for a while, in Odimbar's absence, as if the bower was his, with a Teehoops audience but no evident charmed individual. Which brings into my mind as mentioned earlier the question of the biological and the psychosocial triggers for conversion to satin black bird status. When Odimbar flew back, with a new blue bottle top, the Teehoops and the Pretender jump away but demonstrate that they would have the crown if they could.

Yesterday afternoon I witnessed a period of Odimbar's life which was intriguing. It involved someone who seemed an older female who was especially wary and flew instantly into the very big Magnolia Figo (Port Wine Magnolia) at a glimpse of me and the camera. I did get to observe that for many minutes, mid-afternoon, Odimbar was diddling about outside practising his karaoki numbers while this older person was in the bower working on it or tidying it up. There was no sense of sexual engagement, there was a sense of relationship; of acceptance of roles. This bird thus gets the name Yuthiwim (You'd Think I Was 'is Mother). This definitely raises questions about traditional oohing-and-ahhing over the amazing works of the male bowerbird. I'm trying to find research info on this, but the researchers, perhaps projecting, focus on the rock-and-roll-and sex moments of Satinism, can anyone point to research on this phase. Months from breeding season, August-September at the earliest..

Yesterday I filled a long-dry water bowl in front of the bower (photo at end of this blog entry). Odimbar and Yuthiwim spent time together there. Odimbar is as aware of our presence as is Yuthiwim, but he stands his ground. I am conscious of the need to avoid such pressure of presence as to send him elsewhere. He has enough pressure from his own species.

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Among practical problems for me is that grabbing movie material with the camera and putting it on the hard disk of the elderly MacBook Pro gobbles space. The 1tb hard disk is half full. 2.5gb more from the camera this morning. Efforts will need to be made within a month to archive much of the material on other discs.

There is also the question of sufficiency of equipment. The bedroom view with camera is good but it is sidelong to the bower and the whole area 'behind' the bower is obstructed by shrubbery. And we do not pick up sound outside on the inside camera without clumsy complication and expense.

click to enlarge

So this morning I bought a 'trail camera' from ebay, the cheapest available, from an Australian seller (quick delivery) and with both video and microphone (photo above from the ebay as as was this morning 17 April).  Hopefully in place by Thursday or Friday, facing the bower.

But for now, let's step outside, see the bigger view.

At the front door, the eternally nattering earthy women seem not to notice the bower— in the distance, at the top of the photo on the right. They are busy, of course, heading up this blog.

Lets head for the driveway...

In the photo above, from the driveway you can see how the bower is in a secluded area, in front of bedroom windows, but hidden behind geraniums, camellias, azaleas and abutilon (playground of small birds, especially Eastern Spinebill, see my photo of one back here) ... with as backdrop on the southern side, a massive Magnolia figo beyond Odimbar's central stage. Many birds nest in that tree. Nearer you can see trunks of two Hymenosporum flavum, aka (Australian) Native Frangipani. These are between the bower and the house. Odimbar can climb to the top in an instant. See yesterday's movie.


The screenshot from google maps shows approximately from where the photo above was taken (gold star) and approximately where the bower is (blue dot).

From the street the stoic Dwight, who hangs out in a tree, has a good view of the goings-on but no one else imagines what wonders lurk down there near the house.



Lift the camera and lean in —see the bower?



Going into the garden ... this shows the bower and the water bowl and a little of the window vantage point. This is the centre of Odimbar's domain, but his authority extends 20 metres from the bower at ground level and up to tree tops.



I have other things I should be doing, but this is difficult to step away from. This is only Day 4!!

Oh and on some soundtracks there is evidence of this creature who is also fond of a blue object.

Ralph Spoodle** and Spikey.

**In Australia we say Spoodle, in less refined countries people say Cockapoo.

interactions Sunday 16 April

We are not sure in the early morning whether the number of blue objects in front of the bower is decreased, though that is what it seems. I must establish a system for photographing the forecourt of the bower regularly from a fixed position. As also I need to invest to provide the camera with a microphone outside the window. And of course I have to improve my camera work. I have during the morning made some adjustments to saturation, etc, to get the images clearer. Meanwhile the actors won't wait.

[Apologies for scritchy scratchy noises in films, camera on window]

Here came a fair maid who turned out to be a thief. What are we to make of this? I am not a natural scientist or ornithologist, but have degrees in anthropology and defence studies. IF, IF, this shiny dark male, Odimbar, is newly thus feathered, he was recently a green coloured bird, like other young males looking like the females. But what happens as a male shifts from adolescence to maturity? Do mates still want to hang out, do they want to become blue bottle top collectors too? Is the collaboration or competition or just adolescent mucking about. Most importantly, what comes first, a biosocial prompt to shift plumage or an advance in blue-thing collection? Does the social activity prompt the biology or vice-versa?

Olympus E-PL5 at 40mm (80mm equiv)

That little film captures one moment of peer interaction. There had been a lot of others hanging around and mucking about, seemingly irritating Odimbar.

But then a very different social situation developed, which requires longer film. A green (female?) bird spent minutes working with Odimbar including in the bower. The thumbnail cover image of the video shows this bird with a stick in its mouth. It proceeded to add the stick to the bower.  (Later I saw this bird in the bower alone; it saw me when I reached for the camera and flew up into the six metre Port Wine Magnolia in front of the bower. Many birds nest in there.) Meanwhile, as soon as I tired of filming the birds partly out of sight and working quietly together, they flew up, to separate trees, which you will see in the last couple of minutes.

Olympus E-PL5 at 14mm (28 equivalent)

To begin at the beginning

This little film [apologies for scritchy scratchy noises in films, camera on window] covers the mornings of 14 and 15 April 2017. This in our suburban front yard. While most conventional suburban housing in Australia places a desert of grass in front of the house and the main bedroom looking towards the street (with curtains discreetly drawn), we have allowed tall trees and understorey to block the view from the street and sculpted vegetation to allow a garden view from the bedroom. We have coffee and bird view in the mornings. Startled to find, after daylight absence from this view for a week, that a bowerbird has built a bower. On 14 April I managed to catch the dramatic photo at the header, from which the light-hearted name for this new family member: ODIMBAR (one day I might be a raptor).

I first wrote about this here, in another blog which was only recently started and was intended to include everything bloggable—separate blogs causing brain fissures. Well, my brain is fissured, my time is chopped up, by the powerful presence of Odimbar. And if Odimbar survives and thrives, as we hope he will, his story needs to be separate. So we thus must have odimbar.blogspot!