116 The Fuianan Naturalist Vol. 73 



BOWER BIRD VISITS MELBOURNE 



By N. A Wakkfield 



Thi? Satin, Bower-bird (PtUnttorhynclttts viofacetis) is widely 

 distributed, particularly in the near-coastal scrubs, trotvi Cape York- 

 Peninsula in Queensland to the Otway Ranges in Victoria, It i* 

 not the purpose of this article to deal with the species in general. 

 far much has been written about it and the outstanding attributes 

 of these remarkable birds are known to most naturalists. It is in- 

 tended here to comment on the occurrence o[ the species in central 

 Victoria, and to put on record the story of the visit of a solitary 

 bird to an eastern suburb of Melbourne in the winter of this year. 



In 1909, Ksaac Batcy wrote (Emit 7 rj) that Satin Bower -birds 

 were frequent visitors, in autumn or rarly winter, to the Jackson's 

 Creek area near Sunbnry. up to 1851, but that he knew of none 

 there since that date. He recorded loo that the Hurst family of 

 Diamond Creek (Hurstbrirlge) told him "forty years ago' that 

 these birds used to visit them and attack their fruit 



In A. J , Campbell's Nests' and Eags of Afutrahan Ihrds (1901 } . 

 tt is noted that flocks of about one hundred Satm Bower-bird* 

 were often sevn in the Gembrook district ; but with the turn of the 

 century it seems that this species has become very xmcommon \n 

 central Victoria. 



In Donatd Macdonald's nature column in the Anjus of Novem- 

 ber 5, 1927, R. A. Paull of "Cam Urea" on the old Monbulk road, 

 reported a bower (which he referred teas a nest) in an adjoining 

 paddock, and he wrote that the bird concerned visited his house 

 "a coupfe of dozen times a day'' 



In 1928, F. E. Howe reported (Emn 21 : 265) that these birds 

 were ''plentiful at Whittlesea some years ago' 1 but that be bad 

 looked in vain for them there since. Then in 1931, Blanche Miller 

 wrote {Emu SI . 14) of a solitary one which came to a garden at 

 Deep Creek on the Keiior Plains, building a bower there and re- 

 maining for several months. 



Last year a bower and three birds were reported to be at the 

 Maroondah Dam, and from Crosbie Morrison's ''Backyard Diary* 

 {/{ryus, July 27, 1956) we learn that one was about Warrandyte 

 during the winter of this year. 



For the Melbourne suburban area there have apparently been 

 only three occasions upon which bower birds have paid visits 

 Gregory Mathews, in Birds of Australia, cites a record *"'ou the 

 17th September, 1906, in the Melbourne Botanic Gardens, sup- 

 posed to be the first time observed in the city". 



Ju the Melbourne B.O.C. Monthly Notts oi July 1940, W 

 Hcathcotc wrote of a bower which he observed in the same gardens 

 in May of that year. It appears that five of the hiids came there 

 ''after the 1939 fires and that one staved for some time. It built 



