Keith Horton (Australia) watches from the nearby shrubbery as a female satin bowerbird visits a male’s bower to inspect its work.
Keith was visiting the busy university campus of Australia’s University of Wollongong in New South Wales when he spotted a bower. Male satin bowerbirds build bowers of twigs to attract females.
Returning over a few days for a couple of hours each time, Keith eventually saw a female visiting. He combined two images to get both birds in focus.
Bowerbirds prefer to collect blue-coloured natural materials to decorate their bowers. This one made good use of waste plastic carton tops, drinking straws and clothes pegs. The switch to plastic items shows how well they have adapted to urban environments.
Australia
Keith takes photos mostly of nature in his local area, the Illawarra, south of Sydney, Australia. There’s an incredible variety of ecosystems in the area, including rainforests, eucalypt forests and woodlands, heaths, upland and lowland swamps and coastal sand scrub, to name just a few. So, there’s always lots to photograph. However, many of these ecosystems are under threat and Keith hopes that his photographs can play a role in their preservation.
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