Birds-of-Paradise

BirdNote^®

Birds-of-Paradise

Written by Bob Sundstrom

This is BirdNote!

[Ambient New Guinea forest and Raggiana Bird-of-Paradise crowing at lek]

It’s early morning on the island of New Guinea. The lowland forest erupts with the crowing calls of male Raggiana Birds-of-Paradise. [Raggiana Bird-of-Paradise]

Groups of male Raggiana Birds-of-Paradise perform elaborate displays to attract females. The size of small crows, the males have a yellow head, bright green throat, and a lush mass of fine, russet-orange plumes that hang well beyond their tails. In a sequence known as the “flower display,” the males hang upside down with their wings flexed downward, while flaunting those russet plumes upward. [Raggiana Bird-of-Paradise]

“Birds-of-Paradise”— an aptly exotic name for this most varied and extravagantly decorated group of birds. All forty-three species are found on New Guinea, or nearby.
Picture one named the Ribbon-tailed Astrapia, as it flies along the forest edge. [Ribbon-tailed Astrapia] With an emerald-green head and velvety black body, the Astrapia trails two slender, white tail-plumes a full three feet behind its body. They undulate like fine ribbons in the breeze.

For BirdNote, I’m Mary McCann.

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Calls of the birds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Raggiana Bird-of-Paradise and Ribbon-tailed Astrapia recorded by Eleanor Brown.
BirdNote’s theme music was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
Producer: John Kessler
Executive Producer: Chris Peterson
© 2015 Tune In to Nature.org   December 2013; Nov 2017; December 2018/2021  
Narrator:  Mary McCann

ID#112805RBOPKOHO           RBOP-01b-2009-12-09-MM