Yellow-breasted Bowerbird Chlamydera lauterbachi Scientific name definitions

27 cm; male 128–135 g, female 112–120 g. Male nominate race has yellowish olive-green head, obvious silky-rose crown with coppery sheen; feathering of face side and neck conspicuously streaked (pale shaft and adjacent web); upperparts brownish-olive with slender pale feather shafts and pale buff-yellow to olive feather edging (scalloped appearance), uppertail-coverts slightly more yellowish; upperwing-coverts and flight-feathers dusky brown-olive with pale outer edging and much off-whitish to yellowish broad tipping, and larger spotting on tips of flight-feathers; uppertail feathers similar to flight-feathers, but outer edges of outer rectrices more yellow towards base; chin to upper breast greyish to pale yellow, feathers strongly edged dusky grey-brown or olive; remaining underparts yellow, with indistinct pale brown-grey barring on side of breast to flanks; iris dark brown; bill black; legs brownish to greyish. Female is similar to male but duller, with less yellow-olive on crown, slightly paler upperparts, more buff-yellow below, also lighter in weight and slightly shorter-winged. Newly fledged juvenile is like adult, but more streaked above, chin to breast, flanks and abdomen soft downy off-white with grey mottling, pale yellow wash on central abdomen; immature male like adult female; subadult male has few to nearly all reddish feathers intruding into crown. Race <em>uniformis</em> (only two specimens) differs from nominate only in having crown yellowish olive-green, not coppery.

Editor's Note: This article requires further editing work to merge existing content into the appropriate Subspecies sections. Please bear with us while this update takes place.

Editor's Note: Additional distribution information for this taxon can be found in the 'Subspecies' article above. In the future we will develop a range-wide distribution article.

Little known. Fruits and insects, including caterpillars and beetles (Coleoptera); one young was fed with insects. Typically occurs singly or in small parties.

Bower-advertisement song and calls  of adult male sharp "chilp chilp chilp" and rasping, grating, churring, rattling and hissing sounds; mimics environmental sounds, but avian mimicry recorded only for captives. In courtship gives soft pathetic notes and churring calls.

Breeds in all months except May, eggs in Apr and Jun–Jan; display season Apr–Jan. Polygynous, promiscuous male building and decorating elaborate avenue bower ; female builds and attends nest alone. Non-territorial, except for defence of bower sites by male; bowers c. 0·5–1 km apart, on level ground, atop small rise, beneath bushes, and in marshy areas (where substantial stick bower base may serve as an island). One bower site used for more than ten years. Avenue bower unique in having four walls built upon substantial stick and cane base, main walls angled outwards (rather than vertical or arched over avenue), at each end of avenue platforms extensively developed into additional walls that form cross-passages at right angles to central avenue; consists of up to 3000 sticks, lined with 1000 or more strands of brownish grass, mean dimensions of bower 64 cm long, 67 cm wide and 43 cm high, of main avenue 23 cm long and 10 cm wide, mean size of exposed stick platform at each end of avenue 84 cm long and 17 cm deep, no favoured orientation of central avenue apparent (Baiyer valley, in E of range); bower decorations (up to 1000 or more) mostly grey to blue-grey river-washed pebbles and large spherical blue quandong fruits (Elaeocarpus) placed against/into sticks of inner end walls and in central avenue, smaller red decorations placed on bower floor, charcoal used if stones rare; "painting" of bower and bower destruction occur. Courtship involves several display elements, including Nape-presentation (despite unadorned nape), with or without a decoration (typically a red fruit) held in bill, with simultaneous soft vocalizations; an Upright posture with sharp wing-flicks, accompanied by loud hissing as bill widely opened towards female to expose orange mouth; sharp jerking of head up and down and flicking of tongue in and out; reminiscent of behaviour of congeners and Sericulus chrysocephalus. Nest a neat, compact shallow cup of fine twigs, vine tendrils, dried grasses and bark upon sparse foundation of dry sticks, built 1–4 m above ground, mostly in tree, bush, sapling or grass; mean distance of four active nests from nearest active bower 204 m (Baiyer valley). Clutch 1 egg; no information on incubation and nestling periods.