A bird that uses his beak to great effect to mix up some blue paint and decorate his bower!

A bird decked out in stunning gold and jet black combined mixed with a golden orange-yellow crown.

Meet the Regent Bowerbird

The Regent bowerbird (Sericulus chrysocephalus), is a medium-sized, up to 25 cm long, sexually dimorphic bowerbird. The male bird is black with a golden orange-yellow crown, mantle, and black-tipped wing feathers. He has a yellow bill, black feet, and yellow eyes.

The female of the species is pretty much a brown bird with whitish or fawn markings, grey bill, black feet, and crown.

This bird is native to Australia, mainly found throughout the continents eastern Australian rainforests and its margins and central Queensland to New South Wales.

The Regent Bowerbirds diet consists mainly of fruits, berries and insects.

The male bowerbirds build bowers, which can be simple ground clearings or much more elaborate structures, to attract a female mate.

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–There is a good reason why this fluffy bundle of cuteness is often described as the “jewel of the bush!”

The male mixes a muddy greyish blue or pea green “saliva paint” in their mouths which they use to decorate their bowers.

He builds an avenue-type bower consisting of two walls of sticks, decorated with shells, seeds, leaves, and berries. Regents will sometimes use a wad of greenish leaves as “paintbrushes” to help spread the substance. This represents one of the few known instances of tool use by a bird.

The male may end mating with up to several females and takes no part in raising young.

Being a common species throughout its range, the Regent Bowerbird is evaluated as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

Photo Courtesy of Dominic Sherony / CC BY 2.0

Watch and listen to this bird right here in the video below: