A few words on the mutual courtship dance of Silver-breasted Broadbill

[Samrat Sarkar]

The Silver breasted Broadbill spends its lifetime under the covered canopy of the evergreen forest and naturally they mate in these places only. In those forests under covered canopies very small amounts of light penetrate from the open sky to the ground. And whatever amount of light comes it does so after being reflected by the green leaves and for that reason the surrounding atmosphere becomes filled with yellow green hues. From these findings we can make some general conclusions.

Discussions and conclusions -

1. Both the birds were sitting on two different well lit and airy tree branches. But at the time of mutual courtship dance both of them came to a branch which was obscured by some leaves. Mr. Endler and Mr. Thery observed that the birds prefer only those lighting situations where the colour of their feathers become cryptic, dramatic and conspicuous while at the same time they can camouflage to save themselves from the threats of the possible unknownenemies. In this case also those factors might have played some important roles.

2. There are many and different colours in the body of a Silver breasted Broadbill. Among all these colours the most attractive ones are the liver-hued red patches extending from beneath the back upto the mid portion of the tail, and two distinct of sky blue and white patches in their black wings. The visions of the birds are much more sensitive than ours’ and they can differentiate the subtle variations of lights. They might have spent thousands of years to learn this special type of mutual courtship dance in which they want to display their beautiful colours on their feathers more prominently to their partners. That may be the reason why they want to expose more the colourful beauty patches on their wings and backs to their prospective mates.

3. The particular branch of tree might have been used for this particular purpose of courtship activities by their contemporaries or even by their forefathers for past few years. In the language of ornithologists this type of places are called as Lek place. This couple also have made a good and proper use of this place.

4. In this connection let me remember that I observed a pair of Orange headed Thrush (OHT) in our village one year ago. https://www.indiawilds.com/forums/sh...-headed-Thrush. In the case of that pair also I observed more or less the same type of behaviour as that of the present pair. Reddish orange colour of sunrays made their way through some small openings of the tree leaves above and fell on the dry leaves on the ground. In situations like this the sun rays after passing through the small openings fall directly on the ground. The sunrays make an angle with the horizontal as it passes through the small holes between the leaves above, the same angle as we look at the sun. In situations like this the lights of long wavelengths, such as red and orange become prevalent suppressing the other colours. After observing the particular pair for a number of times I could pretty well identify the pair at a glance. The female bird was bringing food stuff from the male one and was again and again coming to sit and spread its wings on that particular spot where sunrays were coming. It was obvious that the bird was spreading its wings not for baking in the sun because it was mid noon and was in the month of April and the temperature was around 38 degree Celsius. Had the bird wanted to bake in the sun it would have remained sitting under the sun at the same spot and would not have left the spot again and again.