#birds-of-paradise

[mote-historie]

Umberto Brunelleschi, Woman in Sheer Dress with Bird of Paradise, 1920's

Umberto Brunelleschi (1879 - 1949) was born in Italy, but moved to France in 1900, where he became a printer, book illustrator, and set and costume designer. He contributed to several French fashion magazines, such as Journal des Dames et des Modes, Gazette du Bon Ton, and Les Feuilles d'Art. Between the two world wars he worked on set and costume designs for several theaters, including Folies Bergère in Paris, the Roxy Theatre in New York, and La Scala in Milan. Some of the books he illustrated are Candide (Voltaire), Contes du temps jadis (Charles Perrault), and Les Masques et les Personnages de la Comedie Italienne. Towards the end of his life he also did a number of erotica illustrations. (x)

[dromeoraptor]

Birds-of-Paradise feel like some speculative evolution project. Once upon a time, a bird found itself on an isolated island continent (most of them live in New Guinea, but some live on Australia, and New Guinea was connected to Australia during glacial periods), and it evolved into a whole family of birds with crazy sexual displays. But not just crazy, but with multiple genera all crazy in different ways. It really does feel like someone wanted to make a spec evo project showing off how sexual selection and display structures can be, but it's real!

This is far from a comprehensive list, but we have:

The one with a trombone windpipe: Curl-Crested Manucode

This is a bird that looks pretty normal, it's from the first branch to split off from the others so it's still monogamous unlike the more extravagant ones. It has a cool sound, but not something you'd expect to need crazy internal workings.

But it does have crazy internal workings, with this super long trachea (windpipe) that bends 4 times before finally getting to the mouth. I'm honestly not sure why it has this windpipe, it's not particularly loud or anything as far as I know.

The "King of the Dance": Western Parotia

Parotias already have complex dances for birds-of-paradise, but the Western Parotia is the one with the most complex of them all. Each Parotia's dance has multiple steps, in a specific order. This one has 6 steps.

Perch Pivot- the male pivots back and forth on a horizontal branch above the display court, a little patch of forest floor that he's cleared out

Head Tilt- the male goes up to a female on the branch and flops his head from side to side.

Court Hop- The male hops across the court, (not one big hop, multiple smaller ones like a sparrow or kangaroo), pauses, and then hops the other way.

Swaying Bounce- The male bounces up and down and side to side as he flutters his wings, moving his head in an infinity sign. He also has a variation on this where it closes its wings and bounces more vigorously

Ballerina Dance- has four parts to it. He does a bow, he walks a bit, he pauses, and then he moves flares those shiny neck feathers while hopping side to side.

The one with wires coming out of its head: the King-of-Saxony

This one has two really weird feathers called "head wires". Twice as long as the bird's body, and he can point them backwards, to the side, or even forwards! They're not just long too, their structure's all weird with the barbs fused into these plasticy tabs.

The one that likes it rough: the Greater Bird-of-Paradise

While showy for a bird, they're nothing too special for a bird of paradise. The main special thing is their big plume of feathers on their back, and their display is basically just running along the branches showing off their plumes and making a racket.

But once he's got the female's attention, he shows the underside of that plume on his back, and then he starts flapping his wings and basically hopping backwards and touching her with his rear end.

Then he starts clapping her with his wings, and kinda pecking at her head. I don't think he open his mouth but he's not exactly being gentle with that beak. And then comes the sex, both seconds of it. Well 2.5 seconds is what I counted in the video, but yeah. Bird sex in general is really short with few exceptions.

The bald one with a Yoshi saddle: Wilson's Bird-of-Paradise

For these birds, the height of male sexiness is a bald head, it seems.

Wrinkly, pale blue bald skin on the head.

Even the females get in on the bald action, it seems.

There's also this thing on his back that he can open and close, this time made of feathers and not bald skin, that I think looks like a Yoshi saddle thing. Also that bib thingy is green, but only at a certain angle.

The one that sings like a cricket: The Black Sicklebill

Crickets sing with their wings, and so does this bird. One of the things he does is rub his wings either against each other or the base of the tail (we're not sure), and it makes this knocking or "distant machine-gun" sound.

The one that sounds like a Machine Gun: The Brown Sickebill

His display is impressive, I showed off his relative's display in the images of the previous part. But the more interesting thing to me is that he sounds like he's imitating some sorta rapid-fire ray gun. I don't know how true this is, but supposedly, during WW2, Japanese soldiers mistook their songs for gunfire.

Credit to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's YouTube channel being my main source for this post!

[cockmoment-theblog]

Round 1, Match 29 - Black Vulture vs. Greater Lophorina

All propaganda is welcome in replies/reblogs!

[ur-daily-inspiration]

Cute birds appreciation post

[daily-spooky]

[maviyenot]

[xtruss]

The World's Best Destinations For Bird-Watching! Slow Down For Epic Spectacles of Nature in These World Wonders For Birding.

SOUTH GEORGIA 🇬🇪 ISLAND — Half a million king penguins, each standing three feet tall, pack shoulder to shoulder in mesmerizing colonies on this hundred-mile-long, glacier-studded island–reached by two days of sailing east of Chile’s Cape Horn. Millions of smaller seabirds nest on the island’s tussock-covered slopes, partly thanks to the largest-ever rat-eradication effort, completed on South Georgia in 2015. While drinking in the abundant birdlife, raise a glass to Ernest Shackleton at his final resting place. Photograph By Eric Chen, Getty Images

CAPE MAY, NEW JERSEY, USA 🇺🇸— The narrow peninsula at Cape May acts as a bird funnel, bringing in songbirds during their spring and fall migrations. At dawn on a good day, legendary Higbee Beach offers front-row seats to a feathered fashion show: A steady procession flies by, each bird intent on finding a place to rest as it encounters the natural barrier of Delaware Bay. With a little luck, you can see 20 species of warblers, each in its own colorful costume. Photograph By Jay Cassario, Getty Images

PANTANAL, BRAZIL 🇧🇷 — Everyone gets spoiled by nature’s extravagance of Brazil's Pantanal, especially during the July-to-August dry season when three-foot hyacinth macaws and hulking jabiru storks seem to lurk around every corner. Cruise the famous Transpantaneira road or hop a boat downriver where, amid oodles of birds, you might glimpse a jaguar lounging on an exposed bank. Photograph By All Canada Photos/Alamy Stock Photo

BROOME, WESTERN AUSTRALIA 🇦🇺 — Roebuck Bay, on the coast of Australia’s enormous Kimberley wilderness, might be the shorebird capital of the world. More than 100,000 sandpipers, godwits, knots, tattlers, plovers, curlews, greenshanks, and turnstones gather here each year before embarking on a marathon journey northward: Many will not touch down until reaching China five days later. In early April, you can relax on the beach at sunset to watch flock after flock take to the skies. Photograph By Luc Hooganstein, Buiten-Beeld/Minden Pictures

NEW GUINEA 🇬🇳 HIGHLANDS — The jungly interior of New Guinea, largely unmapped until the 1930s, astonished early explorers with its birdlife—and the area remains a birdwatcher’s wonderland. Dazzling birds-of-paradise appear to have sprung from a modern artist’s wild imagination. A courting male Raggiana bird of paradise looks like a quivering, pastel-colored feather duster caught in an invisible pinball machine. Photograph By Tim Laman, National Geographic Image Collection

KAKUM NATIONAL PARK, GHANA 🇬🇭 — A series of hanging walkways, draped 130 feet above the ground, gives bird’s-eye views of Ghana's pristine West African rain forest for those brave enough to sway into the canopy. Seven treetops are connected by spans totaling 1,150 feet—almost a quarter mile of vertiginous crossings. It’s possible to find 300 species of birds in the park, including the little-known Fraser’s eagle-owl, the wide-ranging melancholy woodpecker, and nine different hornbills. Photograph By Wietse Michiels, Alamy Stock Photo

MINDO, ECUADOR 🇪🇨 — Embraced by cloud forest almost a mile above sea level, the enclave of Mindo in Ecuador is a honey trap for hummingbirds. Spend a morning at one of the valley’s many sugar-feeder stations to admire these turbocharged gems—with evocative names like shining sunbeam and glowing puffleg. While you’re at it, indulge your own sweet tooth with a bar of heavenly, shade-grown local chocolate. Photograph By Karine Aigner, National Geographic Image Collection

HULA VALLEY, FOREVER PALESTINE 🇵🇸 (ILLEGALLY OCCUPIED BY THE FASCIST WAR CRIMINAL ZIONIST 🐖 🐷 🐖 🐗, ISRA-HELL) — At the geographic crossroads of Eurasia and Africa, upwards of a billion birds may pass through Israeli airspace each fall before crossing the Sahara Desert. Wetland restoration projects have been so successful that many birds now spend the winter, too, and “The Terrorist , Fascist, Apartheid Illegal Regime of the War Criminal Isra-helli 🐖 🐷 🐖 🐗 Government” feeds corn and seeds to tens of thousands of common cranes in the Hula Valley to decrease crane damage to agricultural fields. A movable hide lets viewers sneak into the midst of this real-life spectacle. Photograph By Doron Horowitz, Redux

KRUGER NATIONAL PARK, SOUTH AFRICA 🇿🇦— On safari, the birds are just as outrageous as other, furrier wildlife. Behold the secretarybird, a terrestrial eagle that uses its exceptionally long legs to stride across the African savanna and stamp on venomous snakes. Or the lesser jacana, equipped with such spindly toes that it can balance on floating lily pads. While others pursue the Big Five in South Africa, set your sights on the tiny Southern cordon-bleu—and, bonus, you’ll spot all the megafauna along the way. Photograph By Mdumbleton, Getty Images

NAGALAND, INDIA 🇮🇳— Several years ago, when conservationists visited the remote province of Nagaland on the border of India and Myanmar, they discovered more than a million Amur falcons gathering in dense roosts near Doyang Reservoir—apparently a launching point for the falcons’ nonstop, 13,000-mile migratory flight to Southern Africa. At its peak in October, this stopover may hold the world’s largest concentration of raptors. Photograph By Caisii Mao, Nutphoto/Getty Images

[stickynotebirds]

275. Superb Bird-of-Paradise

[herpsandbirds]

Blue Bird-of-Paradise (Paradisornis rudolphi), male displaying, family Paradisaeidae, order Passeriformes, found in NE New Guinea

photograph by Dustin Chen

[ecoharbor]

📍Portofino, Italy 🇮🇹

[10piecechickenmcnugget]

“mojang should add this” “mojang should add that” mojang should add more BIRDS

[markscherz]

Nothing quite like the feathers of the blue bird of paradise, Paradisornis rudolphi, which hangs upside down and makes perhaps the most science-fiction sounds of any animal I know. Every chance I get I like to look at the birds of paradise in our ornithology collections at the Natural History Museum Denmark, and marvel at their beauty.

[sitting-on-me-bum]

India has a stunning variety of unique avian life. Wildlife SOS photographer Akash Dolas usually brings us breathtaking leopard rescue images, but he also sees the huge biodiversity of the Western Ghat mountains of Maharashtra near our Leopard Rescue Centre. Akash photographed the moment this paradise flycatcher took flight, with an intense stare and a whip of its exquisite tail feathers.

[smoosie]

Birds of Paradise

[ur-daily-inspiration]

Pigeon wings under a UV light

[daily-spooky]