Throughout the tropical woodlands of northern Australia, the Great Bowerbird (Chlamydera nuchalis) fills the niche of other Chlamydera bowerbirds elsewhere. The Great Bowerbird’s call is a harsh, drawn-out asthmatic rasp, in contact and alarm. Males give a range of hisses, churrs, rasps, twangs, and gratings to their songs during displays or from perches over the bower. More often than not solitary, it is primarily a fruit-eater, bounding alertly within the crowns of bushy trees and shrubs rarely down to the ground-picking off a range of fruits and occasional insects.
Fruit-producing trees attract loose groups of up to 15, especially for breeding. The birds may also come and stay in twos and threes at waterholes where they drink in the afternoon. It is also known as the Queensland Bowerbird and Great Grey Bowerbird. Great Bowerbirds are 340-370 mm long.
In flight, Great Bowerbirds swoop undulates on rounded upturned wings through and over trees. The males build bowers in loose clans, each bower owned by a single bird that tends to it for much of the year. Refurbishing it constantly or building a new one nearby each season, can be done.
Throughout the tropical woodlands of northern Australia, the Great Bowerbird fills the niche of other Chlamydera bowerbirds elsewhere.
Concealed under low foliage, bowers are open or over-arching avenues of twigs and grass thicker than those of Spotted Bowerbirds and Western Bowerbirds-supported on a mat of sticks in a cleared space about two x one-and-a-half meters. The walls of the avenue, about 350-450 mm high, 650-1000 mm long, and 200 mm apart, are aligned north-south and may be painted on the inside, although this does not show. The avenue itself and its lips are littered with white objects-shells, bones, stones, fruit, leaves, flowers, and even bleached dung.
A male enters the peripheral display when a female arrives, circling the bower or cavorting on its northern lip depending on her position. He parades with wings lowered until they touch the ground. He raises his tail and crest, flicks his head, and gapes to reveal his yellow mouth, churring harshly. If the female sits in the bower, he may offer green fruit as they meet. Mating takes place in the bower, with any number of females which then leave to nest and rear young on their own.
As far as identification is concerned, both sexes are alike; females are faintly barred on the belly and the lilac nape bar is reduced or missing. Head mid-grey-brown or flecked white on crown according to race; a broad bar of thick lilac plumes on the nape, edged by curled, white-tipped feathers. Back, wings and tail mid-grey-brown, scalloped faintly to heavily grey-white over back and shoulders; underwings are washed pale buff; tail tipped narrowly white. All underparts are paler grey-brown, barred darker on the undertail. His eyes are deep brown. Bill is deep olive-brown;mouth yellow. Feet are deep olive-brown. There is no nape bar in the immature, but there is a faint bar on the lower breast, belly, and flanks.
Nesting and breeding season occur in August-February; predominantly from October-January. The nest is a flat, coarse, loosely constructed shallow cup of sticks and twigs, 240mm across by 130 mm deep. It is placed-not often well hidden-in the branches of trees or shrubs 1-10 meters above ground, and far from the bower.
Great Bowerbird lays one, sometimes two eggs; lustrous grey-green to cream covered with umber, purple-grey and black lines, squiggles, and spots; oval, 42 x 29 mm. Females perform incubation. There is one brood per season.
Great Bowerbird is found in pockets of vine scrub, paperback, and eucalypt thicket in woodland and open forest across northern Australia. There are two races: one from the Kimberleys to the eastern head of the Gulf of Carpentaria; the other on the Cape York Peninsula south to Mackay, Queensland, except wet eastern coastal fringe.
