The Bowerbird is the common name for several birds of the bowerbird family. These birds are from the Ptilonorhynchidae family. They are found in New Guinea and Australia. Bowerbirds are most noted for their courtship practices. There are 19 species of bowerbirds, each having their own unique, complex courtship display.

The males live apart from the female birds for most of the year. During the breeding season the males gather together to compete for female mates. Each male bird will clear an area of the forest floor, creating a "court" to which he tries to attract females. The male will decorate this "court" with displays of inanimate objects to impress his mate. The items may be shells, flowers, brightly colored berries, or even man-made objects such as pieces of glass.

Some males will even build various structures, or "bowers," to attract a mate. Some species will construct "maypoles" of sticks around a tree trunk. Then they will decorate these sticks with lichens and flowers. The gardener bowerbird is about 10 inches in height. The male of this species will build a tepeelike structure as much as 63 inches across, with a low entranceway in front of which is a "garden" of bright objects and flowers that are regularly replaced as soon as they fade. The male satin bowerbird is common in parts of Australia. It is a silky, blue-black bird, about 7.8 inches long, with bright blue eyes. He will build a stick mat. Down the middle of this mat he places two walls of vertical sticks that may reach 16 inches high. He then displays one of the rare known instances of birds using a tool. He mixes a blue or green fruit juice with his saliva and "paints" this on the bower with a wad of bark. This is done in hopes to entice the grayish-green female into the painted bower to mate. Other species of the Ptilonorhynchidae family also have elaborate method of attracting their mates.

Source: Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 96 Encyclopedia

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And God said, "Let the waters swarm with fish and other life. Let the skies be filled with birds of every kind." So God created great sea creatures and every sort of fish and every kind of bird. And God saw that it was good.

Genesis 1:20-21 (NLT)

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Proverbs 17:22 (NIV)

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