Beer bottle loving Aussie bowerbird caught flying 4km to fulfil obsession
Male bowerbirds are known to obsess over the appearance of their nests, and even replicate human design ideas.
Getting a cold beer can drive an Aussie drinker to extraordinary lengths. Who hasn’t waited in line for 15 minutes during halftime at the footy, or made a late night dash across the city to find an open bottle shop?
Now one little Queensland bird has been discovered flying a remarkable distance to fulfil its obsession with one particular brand of beer. In this case, it wasn’t the drink it was after, but rather the bottle it came in. And there was one particular brand it appears to prefer.
That’s because the creature in question is a great bowerbird. And males of the species are known to obsessively collect small items to display around their bower formations which they dance around to attract females.
Don't bowerbirds collect blue items not green?
Male bowerbirds can be obsessive about the plastic items they choose and this can often be to their detriment. Milk bottle lids had claimed the lives of many bowerbirds before their design was changed.
While satin bowerbirds are well known for collecting blue items like pegs, great bowerbirds prefer white bones, and depending on their preference will sometimes add green, or even red accents.
They can be very picky about what's included, and research suggests they'll remove foreign items they don't like.
Often birds which preference green will include limes or other green plants, but in the case of one bird in tiny Wandoan, a Western Downs town with just over 600 people, it developed a liking for Hahn’s green beer bottles.
How beer can harm our wildlife
Woman discovers source of bird's broken beer bottles
Bird lover Antoinette James snapped a series of pictures of its bower on her property, and reported the bird had likely flown for kilometres with pieces of glass in its mouth.
“We don't drink Hahn… Our closest neighbour is more than 5k away. Someone is smashing bottles at our turnoff, 4k away from the homestead,” she said.
Since she shared her images of the bower to social media, close to 200 people have commented on the bird’s fabulous achievement.
Some have even shared images of bowers in their backyards. In the neighbouring Northern Territory, great bowerbirds generally don’t use green furnishings, but one woman revealed an exception to the rule had been made.
“Apparently this guy didn’t get the brief,” photographer Andrea Watts said.
Why Aussies are obsessed with bowerbirds
Sean Dooley, a writer and twitcher at Birdlife Australia, told Yahoo News bowerbirds are admired because they can show “individual artistic flair”.
“They seem to replicate human traits in terms of artistry and design. They are interior decorators of the bird world,” he said.
“The effect can be quite amazing. And they’ve inspired a lot of thinking about the cognitive abilities of birds.
“The fact that birds can create such complex structures really piques our curiosity.”
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