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
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