Great bowerbird

Great bowerbird
File:Chlamydera nuchalis by Bowdler Sharpe.jpg
Conservation status
Least Concern (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Passeriformes
Family:	Ptilonorhynchidae
Genus:	Chlamydera
Species:	C. nuchalis
Binomial name
Chlamydera nuchalis Jardine & Selby, 1830

The great bowerbird (Chlamydera nuchalis) is a common and conspicuous resident of northern Australia, from the area around Broome across the Top End to Cape York Peninsula and as far south as Mount Isa. Favoured habitat is a broad range of forest and woodland, and the margins of vine forests, monsoon forest, and mangrove swamps.

As with most members of the bowerbird family, breeding considerations dominate the lifecycle: females nest inconspicuously and raise their young alone, while the males spend most of the year building, maintaining, improving, defending, and above all displaying from their bowers. Only a male with a successful bower can attract mates.

The great bowerbird is the largest of the bowerbird family and is 33 to 38 cm long and fawny grey in colour. Males have a small but conspicuous pink crest on the nape of the neck.

Bower

The bower is a twin-walled avenue-type bower approximately 1 metre long and 45 cm high. It is typically located under a shrub or leafy branch. The ends of the bower are scattered with white and green objects - stones, bones, shells and leaves and small man-made objects such as plastic and bottle caps. Within the bower itself is sometimes placed clear glass.

Uniquely among bowerbirds, groups of young males will attend a single bower concurrently, "practising" their bower-building skills prior to establishing their own bower for mating purposes.

Gallery

• Chlamydera nuchalis - Mount Carbine.jpg

  Adult

• 

  Bower

• Great Bower Bird's Bower near Cooktown.jpeg

  Bower near Cooktown, Australia

• Greater-bowerbird444.jpg

  Male showing beginnings of bright plumage on nape of neck

External links

• BirdLife Species Factsheet