Flame bowerbird

The flame bowerbird (Sericulus ardens) is one of the most brilliantly coloured bowerbirds. The male is a medium-sized bird, up to 25 cm long, with flame orange and golden yellow plumage, elongated neck plumes and yellow-tipped black tail. It builds an "avenue-type" bower with two side walls of sticks. The female is an olive brown bird with yellow or golden below.

Flame bowerbird

Least Concern  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Ptilonorhynchidae
Genus: Sericulus
Species:
S. ardens
Binomial name
Sericulus ardens

The flame bowerbird is distributed in and endemic to rainforests of New Guinea. The male flame bowerbird also has a courtship display along with his bower. He twists his tails and his wings to the side, and then shakes his head quickly.

The courtship behaviour of the flame bowerbird was filmed by Japanese photographer Tadashi Shimada in Dancers on Fire, a documentary that aired on the Smithsonian Channel. Although the male appeared to court females twice, no successful mating was filmed as the female moved away when the male mounted. However, Shimada filmed other peculiar behaviour, such as a male courting a juvenile male and several juvenile males as well as an adult male appearing to share one bower, only to be destroyed by another juvenile male.

The flame bowerbird is evaluated as least concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

References
  1. BirdLife International 2016. Sericulus ardens. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2016: e.T22736077A104084394. https://doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-3.RLTS.T22736077A104084394.en. Downloaded on 17 August 2019
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