Is Flame Bower Bird The Most Brightly Coloured Bird On Earth?
After a 4-hour ride on a chugging speed boat, we arrived at the flame bower bird display ground up in the fly river in Papua New Guinea around noon. We took our positions in a cool hide and waited. We didn’t have to wait long to see a fireball landing directly in front of us. The flame bowerbird (Sericulus ardens) is one of the world’s brightest-coloured birds. The male is nearly 25 cm long and has flame orange and golden yellow plumage. It builds a bower in the “avenue” style, with two stick-side walls. The female has an olive-brown body with yellow or golden markings around the stomach.
The flame bowerbird can only be found in the rainforests of New Guinea. The male flame bowerbird performs a courtship display with his bower by twisting his tails and wings to the side and shaking his head quickly. To attract females, the male flame bowerbird can pulse his pupil size at the peak of his display.
