Since 1980, however, Borgia and his students have been developing clever techniques for finding and observing courting birds in a square mile of rainforest near Wallaby Creek in northeastern Australia. To find Satin bower bird bowers, for instance, Borgia stages intense searches. But finding a bower doesn't ensure a study's success, because an observer might watch it for hours before seeing any courting activity. So automatic cameras are left to keep watch on the bowers instead. As the scientists analyze the more than 2,300 hours of videotape they have accumulated, more answers are likely to emerge.
Bower birds can be hard to study.
If nothing else, Borgia says, the predictability makes it easier for the researchers to relocate the bowers. Another of Borgia's graduate students, Gail Patricelli, is using robotic bower birds to study how courting bower birds communicate. Gail wants to find out what kind of cues the females are sending out. To do that, engineers at the University of Maryland built three robot bower birds for Patricelli that are able to perform simple movements such as ruffling their feathers, opening their wings, turning their necks and crouching. In October, Patricelli began placing the robots in bowers, operating them by remote control, then videotaping how the males respond.