Dancing with the Birds- an e-guide to dating

 

Sir Attenborough can’t be in all the wildlife films in the world, so this one has Stephen Fry. The dry humour and crisp tones intact. This film, available on Netflix, is 51 minutes of colour and sheer beauty. The storyline is simple. How do you get yourself a mate? Feathered beauties of tropical rain forests, show you how. And HOW.

Technique 1: Pole Dance. The 12-wired Bird of Paradise of New Guinea, sits patiently on his pole, waiting to display his dancing skills to a prospective mate. He is already quite a looker, with unique 12 wire-like filaments emerging from his wings. The moment a female shows some interest, even in passing, he whips his filaments about and does the most impressive pole dance that you will ever see. The female watches in awe and enjoys getting a couple of whacks from the wires – or maybe they are caresses.

Technique 2: Team work. Lance Tailed Manakins of South American forests, work in pairs. The ‘wingman’ (pun intended) does a series of vertical hops in tandem with his friend, right in front of the prospective date’s face.  The female agrees to date, if she is impressed with the furious hopping. The cutest thing is how the wingman graciously recedes, allowing the friend to go ahead with the date, though he has expended equal energy with all the synchronized hopping.

Technique 3: Keeping house. MacGregor’s Bower Bird from New Guinea’s mountain forests, is an architect. He builds the most impressive structures, many times his own tiny height and decorates them with eco-friendly objects. He is a perfectionist. Not a stem of leaf can be out of place. Jealous neighbours may come and destroy his home or pigs may come in snorting and accidentally dismantle it. But MacGregor remains unruffled (couldn’t resist this one). He quietly goes about setting his house in order again, for his mate.

Technique 4: Ballet. Carola’s Parotia also hails from New Guinea. Like any other ballet dancer, he is deeply committed to his art form and practices alone, for hours. His dance studio has to be perfect so he clears it of every stray leaf and stem. He has a 9-step dance routine with influences from contemporary jazz (some crazy head banging/neck shaking) to classic pirouettes. He goes through the 9 steps with utter dedication, even if prospective mate gets distracted and starts looking here and there. He remains focussed. And usually, this kind of single-minded focus, gets him his mate at the end. The film ends on an image of him, dancing, alone, in his perfect arena in the forest.

You may not weep buckets, as I did, on watching such an intense concentration of beauty in our forests. But you may start looking at the trees around you and its inhabitants, with more wonder than before.