Cotman watercolours tubes, Faber Castel Pastel pencils on Saunders Waterford 300gsm 310×230 Cotton Satiné High White paper

The beautiful blue bird is the male of the Superb fairywren (Malurus cyaneus). The female next to it is considerably less colored, against the boring. This songbird is found in Australia. They live there in family groups with a dominant pair and some helpers, who are usually the offspring. With loud singing and fierce chases, they defend their territory.

They look cute but they are very unfaithful to each other. The dominant male of the family group has no problem at all with mating with several females in the group, but the females in other groups are also not safe for him. The dominant female participates in this and is mating with the males of other groups. I read that research indicated that about 95% (!) are not the biological offspring of the dominant couple… Despite the debauchery, they do take care of the young together.

Why do they mate with everyone? It seems that this has to do with a defense mechanism against birds of prey that like such a tiny fairywren. Those birds of prey are afraid of crows. The ornate elf imitate the sound of crows, so they can scare off the birds of prey. But they can’t all imitate it equally well. Males and females therefore look for other partners who can imitate the sound of crows well or better. This should then give offspring that can also imitate the sound well. However, this leads to more and more variation in the ability to mimic that crow sound within the population, which in turn leads to even more infidelity (in the search for better partners) to boost the ability of imitating crows even further.

Funny detail I found on the internet (I don’t know if it’s true) is that the dominant male brings flowers to his partner. Researchers think that’s kind of a make-up (mmm, where do I know that from?). All that mating with others can lead to jealousy and conflict in the familiy. The flowers would then indicate that he still cares about her (yes, really, I do! Those others means nothing to me).

Romantic soul? Or is it an excuse to just go wild?

How interesting nature is!

📸: Penny from Pixabay

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