When the team returned to the sites, they determined which decorations had been selected from the mud pile and moved to a gazebo, and whether they came from an urban or rural source. After recording the data, all the original decorations were returned to their bowers.
Green glass and red cable.
A male great bowerbird in a rural setting showing off to a female great bowerbird. Credit: Caitlin Evans
Further analysis revealed that rural bowers most frequently used green glass and green leaves or seeds for decoration, while urban birds preferred green glass and red wire. Plastic items were also popular, although “we also found items including a pair of handcuffs, medicine bottles in gazebos near a hospital, and fluorescent mouth guards at a site near an Australian rules football field.” said University of Exeter co-author Caitlin Evans..
Decorations on urban gazebos were more than 10 times more likely to be human-made than those on rural gazebos, which had more natural elements such as fruits, seeds, leaves and sticks. Urban gazebos also had almost five times as many decorations as rural ones, with an average of 90 items per gazebo compared to 20 for rural birds. A high-achieving urban man gathered 300 items to decorate his gazebo. Both urban and rural sandwich males showed a strong preference for human items when given a choice between items from each environment. And the red decorations in the urban gazebos were more vivid, and the green elements more muted, than in the rural gazebos.
