Bitch: On the Female of the Species

by Lucy Cooke

Male satin bowerbirds have relatively large brains, are long-lived and undergo a strange seven-year adolescence which is spent impersonating the female. Juvenile males share the same green plumage as the females and Gail thinks that learning their complex lothario skills might explain this unusually long, cross-dressing developmental period, which is spent not only practising bower-building but being actively courted by adult males. ‘Young males learn courtship from the role of the female and they’ll often do these crouching displays. They don’t “mate”, but they’ll basically do this entire courtship from the female perspective and then if the male looks like he’s getting close to mating they just fly out the front.’