Attenborough - David Attenboroughs Why Do Birds of Paradise Dance

Nature seems to have taken every precaution that these, her choicest treasures, may not lose value by being too easily obtained. First we find an open, harbourless, inhospitable coast, exposed to the full swell of the Pacific Ocean; next, a rugged and mountainous country, covered with dense forests, offering in its swamps and precipices and serrated ridges an almost impassable barrier to the central regions; and lastly, a race of the most savage and ruthless character... In such a country and among such a people are found these wonderful productions of nature. In those trackless wilds do they display that exquisite beauty and that marvellous development of plumage, calculated to excite admiration and astonishment among the most civilized and most intellectual races of man...

Alfred Russel Wallace. Narrative of Search after Birds of Paradise, Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London (1862).

To the human eye, birds are among the most beautiful and intriguing of all natures creations. Even a single stray feather, picked up by chance on a country walk, is a thing of wonder if examined closely. Its form, delicacy, and its colouring sometimes subdued, sometimes gaudy each have the power to astonish. And even the most familiar of species the soberly dressed house sparrow or the common starling, for instance are creatures of subtle beauty when viewed with fresh eyes.

But one family stands out from the rest, not just because of the exquisite appearance of many of its species, but also because of the sheer extravagance of variety, colour and form that these creatures parade. These are birds that truly live up to their name: birds of paradise.

From the moment of their introduction to the European mind in the early sixteenth century, their unique beauty was recognised and commemorated in the first name that they were given; birds so beautiful must be birds from paradise! This naming extravaganza even continued into the nineteenth century when newly discovered species were named after illustrious crowned heads of Europe Prince Rudolphs Blue Bird of Paradise, Princess Stephanies Bird of Paradise, the Emperor of Germanys Bird of Paradise. The list of royal names goes on and on. Nor were splendid names enough to satisfy the inquiring minds of those who encountered the birds. In the early days all manner of fanciful stories and theories grew up to explain the mystery of their phenomenally beautiful appearance, and the tales quickly acquired mythical status. And as far as mystery is concerned, these birds are still wrapped in enigma.

Of course, we now know much more than the European scholars of the early sixteenth century who received the first specimens from the then remote lands somewhere far to the east. But there is much that is still unknown.

A major reason for this mystery surely lies in the nature of the birds main homeland, the great island of New Guinea. Shrouded in exotic mystery, this island stronghold is one of the worlds last truly wild places. Its jungle-covered mountain ranges and steamy, tangled lowlands provide some of the most formidable and daunting of terrains. Add to this the ferocious reputation of New Guineas inhabitants, and the island has represented something of a fortress against exploration and industrial exploitation.

Most people with an interest in ornithology will recognise the gloriously plumed Greater Bird of Paradise, but to many it comes as something of a surprise to learn that this species is not alone. In fact, more than 40 distinct species are currently recognised. Among these are quite astounding differences in size, shape and colour patterning. The tiny King Bird of Paradise, for instance, with its exquisite red plumage, metallic green breast band and peculiar curled ends to the tail feathers (which are otherwise no more than naked quills), seems to have little in common with the metre-long Black Sicklebill sporting a shimmering tail and long, slender, down-curved beak. Yet all the species are bound together by underlying structural affinities.

These similarities are much more apparent in the females of the various species. Often these soberly plumaged birds (it is only the males of each species that are spectacularly adorned) are remarkably alike, even though their respective males look so very different.

The species generally referred to as plume birds are the ones that conform in appearance to general expectations. Characterised by great bunches of lace-like flank plumes coloured variously yellow, red, white or even blue, it is these species that provide the basis for the iconic images of birds of paradise that grace all manner of postage stamps and advertising campaigns.

The national airline of Papua New Guinea carries a plume bird as its logo, and advertisements for the country or its products rarely if ever appear without one. In fact, New Guinea is characterised by the image of the bird of paradise.

Its national sport may be rugby league, its cultural heritage may be summed up in the dramatic masks and tribal artefacts made by the indigenous peoples, its image often reduced to photographs of tribesmen in spectacular costumes, but its most widely known residents are birds of paradise.

That this family of birds has always exerted a hold over the minds of humans is shown by the manner in which the peoples of New Guinea have prized them from time immemorial. Indeed, the very nature of their tribal customs is defined by the extravagant use of, and trade in, bird of paradise feathers.

Once these same feathers reached the western world their impact was immediate. Here it manifested itself through art and fantastical stories and myths, while princes and emperors displayed power and taste by acquiring the rarely imported specimens for their cabinets of curiosities and museums. The impact may indeed have taken a more veiled, symbolised, form, but it was still profound and eventually led to a manner of human adornment strangely parallel to that shown among New Guinea peoples. Through the nineteenth century and on into the first decades of the twentieth, it was the very height of fashion to add the most bizarre concoctions of feathers as appendages to finely crafted hats and clothes. But this time it wasnt the males who were displaying their loveliness; it was the most fashionable of ladies!

Alfred Wallace, co-author with Charles Darwin of the theory of evolution by natural selection, was not at all sure why male birds of paradise had such extravagant plumes. On the face of it, they contradicted his theory of evolution by natural selection drafted four years after his arrival in Indonesia and subsequently read out to a meeting of the Linnean Society in London during 1858. The theory had been summarised as the survival of the fittest. But how could huge plumes that made a bird extremely conspicuous, that in some instances impeded it in flight and that in all cases clearly made great demands on an individuals physical resources to grow how could such things aid a birds survival?