Vogelkop bowerbird - perched, Minggre, Arfak Mountains

I'm codifying this as the "fake news" bird. As I've shared footage of this bird to friends and family before, their initial response is disbelief. As in, "this has to be fake".

The Vogelkop Bowerbird is nature's greatest seducer. The male is visually unremarkable but compensates for it in three spectacular ways:

1. He's a vocalist that can accurately mimic any sound he hears. Other birds, chainsaws, horses, children playing, anything.

2. He's an architect. The temple roof structure is often ignored because the items in front of it grab all attention, yet this structure alone takes him years to build. It is very robust and can withstand heavy rain. Not that this matters because it's not actually used. The bird doesn't live or sleep in the structure.

3. He's a designer. Whilst the temple roofs are similar between individual males, the decorative items in front of it are not. Each bird picks different items, colors, groupings and placements to appeal to the female. Items commonly include fruits, shiny beetles, fungi, and human-made items like plastic. In this case there's lots of plastic because we're close to a village.

Remarkably, the male seems to have a design plan in its head down to the smallest detail. Any disturbance of already placed items is immediately corrected.

And if that's not enough, they know fashion and thus have culture. They have an understanding of items being rare and particularly impressive. Other males detect the innovation and will try to steal the item whilst the owner is away to feed. Thus, what scores with females is not fixed, it is ever-evolving.

This bird has a very particular and small distribution, but where it appears, there are typical several males around.

I highly encourage you to watch the video: