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Satin Bowerbird Ptilonorhynchus Violaceus (Family Ptilonorhynchidae): First Documented Evidence of Aberrant Plumage in Any Bowerbird

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Satin Bowerbird Ptilonorhynchus Violaceus (Family Ptilonorhynchidae): First Documented Evidence of Aberrant Plumage in Any Bowerbird 40 AUSTRALIAN FIELD ORNITHOLOGY 2012, 29, 40–44 A Pale ‘Cream’ Satin Bowerbird Ptilonorhynchus violaceus (Family Ptilonorhynchidae): First Documented Evidence of Aberrant Plumage in any Bowerbird CLIFFORD B. FRITH1 and TERRY MURPHY2 1P.O. Box 581, Malanda, Queensland 4885 (Email: [email protected]) 247 Railway Street, Kendall, New South Wales 2439 (Email: [email protected]) Summary An adult female or female-plumaged immature male wild Satin Bowerbird Ptilonorhynchus violaceus in a predominantly pale ‘cream’ plumage was observed and photographed in a Kendall, New South Wales, garden over a 6-week period. This individual represents not only the first fully documented instance recorded in the literature of aberrant plumage in the Satin Bowerbird but also in the entire bowerbird family. Colour photographic evidence of the aberrant individual Satin Bowerbird is presented and discussed. Introduction The Satin Bowerbird Ptilonorhynchus violaceus is the most widely known and studied of all 20 bowerbird species (Family Ptilonorhynchidae). The distributional range of the Satin Bowerbird is south-eastern and eastern Australia (the nominate, larger, subspecies P.v. violaceus) and the Wet Tropics region of north-eastern Australia (the smaller but otherwise identical subspecies P.v. minor); for details see Frith & Frith (2004, 2008, 2009). The Satin Bowerbird in particular and most bowerbird species in general have been the subject of intensive field- and/or museum-based studies during recent decades. The results of these studies have been summarised and synthesised in several recent major reviews of the bowerbirds (see Frith & Frith 2002, 2004, 2008; Frith 2010 and references therein). In all of the, considerable, bowerbird literature no fully documented evidence exists of a single individual of any species in any kind of aberrant plumage. This note presents field observations and photographic evidence of a wild adult female or female-plumaged immature male Satin Bowerbird in a near uniform pale ‘cream’ plumage. This record is discussed in the context of the Satin Bowerbird specifically and the bowerbird family as a whole. Field observations and photographs Terry Murphy, in his botanically diverse, cat- and dog-free, suburban garden at Kendall, New South Wales, discovered, identified and performed all field observations and photographs herein of the bird concerned. His garden backs onto farmland. Both Satin Bowerbirds and Regent Bowerbirds Sericulus chrysocephalus have regularly, if unpredictably, frequented this garden over the 36 years that he has owned it. Throughout the entire month of August and the first 2 weeks of September 2011 a generally all ‘creamy-white’ bird repeatedly visited this garden to feed upon windfall fruit and food scraps put out for wild birds and upon green plant foliage in the lawn and at its edges. This pale bird was immediately identified as an aberrantly plumaged Satin Bowerbird. The clearly discernible ventral VOL. 29 (1) MARCH 2012 ‘Cream’ Satin Bowerbird 41 A wild female-plumaged Satin Bowerbird in pale aberrant, schizochroic variant plumage feeding on garden lawn-edge foliage. Kendall, NSW, August 2011 Plate 9 Photo: Terry Murphy A wild female-plumaged Satin Bowerbird in pale aberrant, schizochroic variant plumage standing on lawn beside house decking. Kendall, NSW, August 2011 Plate 10 Photo: Terry Murphy AUSTRALIAN 42 FRITH & MURPHY FIELD ORNITHOLOGY chevrons and barring markings on this pale bird [see Plates 1 (front cover), 9–10) indicate it to be a female or an immature male (immature wild male birds have the barred female-like plumage for at least 6 years: Frith & Frith 2002). It mostly fed alone in the garden but occasionally did so in the company of other Satin Bowerbirds in all plumages (when its vocalisations during interactions sounded typical of its species), but it spent much time perched alone among the foliage of Macadamia Macadamia integrifolia trees when not feeding. Elsewhere, it was observed foraging among conspecifics while behaving as a typical flock member. All images of this pale bird were captured using a Leica V-Lux 2 digital camera, fitted with × 30 zoom lens. The bird in question appeared whitish, or dirty white, in general colour. The wing primaries were a pale buff, paler still along their leading or outer edges, with the central feather-shafts whitish with a hint of yellow. The secondaries were similar but with broader and far more conspicuous white leading edges. The tertials were even whiter. The greater wing-coverts were washed with dilute pale buff. The upper surface of the central two tail-feathers was whitish and that of the other rectrices was washed with pale buff. The central shafts of all rectrices were whitish. The ventral chevron and barring markings, and barring on the thigh feathers, were a dilute pale greyish buff. There appeared to be a most dilute greenish wash to the upper and outer mantle, above the bend of each folded wing. The bill was pale pinkish grey, darker and greyer at the tip. The legs and feet were pale pinkish, and the irides were dark purple (see Plates 1, 9–10). Examination of museum specimens As part of extensive preparatory research for a major review of all morphological and systematic aspects of all bowerbird species CBF (and Dawn Frith) visited all major museums worldwide holding significant numbers of them. During these studies, he examined all bowerbird skin specimens in 32 major collections, throughout Australia, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, mainland United States of America and Hawaii, Canada, Europe and the United Kingdom. During the course of this intensive study, at least 213 study skins of Satin Bowerbirds and an additional 1851 of all of the other bowerbird species accompanied by adequate locality and other data were closely examined and measured (Frith & Frith 2001). In addition to these specimens, an unknown large number of skins of Satin and other bowerbirds, lacking adequate field data to justify their being measured, were closely examined for plumage characters, but were not measured. This intensive study of the external morphology of bowerbird specimens failed to discover a single Satin Bowerbird, or any other bowerbird species, with any kind of aberrant plumage. Discussion In 1927, a brief footnote in the editorial of the journal Emu noted “Mr. Maurice Baldwin, of Brisbane, has acquired for his well-kept aviary at Ascot a fine specimen of a Satin Bower-Bird, pure white” (Chisholm 1927). This appears to be the only mention of an aberrant plumage in the Satin, or any other, Bowerbird in the printed literature to date, albeit lacking any supporting evidence. On 28 September 2008, ‘Pythagoras101’ posted a video clip on the internet, of which 4 minutes and 12 seconds shows a pale Satin Bowerbird similar to the individual we describe and illustrate here. This bird was seen ‘many times a day’ at VOL. 29 (1) MARCH 2012 ‘Cream’ Satin Bowerbird 43 a ‘high country, Victoria, altitude 1000 metres near state forest’ location (the only locality data provided: Pythagoras101 2008). It was described as being ‘not really white, more like blond’ and had ‘some pinky-brown feathers as well as pinkish legs’. This was observed in the garden of the person concerned as the bird fed upon seeds placed atop a tree-stump on the lawn. Although the resolution quality of the video is not high, this bird looks similar to that in Plates 1, 9–10 herein, but it is perhaps slightly darker with no ventral barring obviously discernible (possibly indicating an adult male or the quality of the images). Its bill looks a little darker but its irides appeared similar in colour to those of the Kendall bird. There also appears to be a dilute green wash on the Victorian bird’s upper breast with a patch of similar, if darker, colour to either side of its upper mantle just above the upper bend of each folded wing. Given that CF’s close examination of many more than 2000 bowerbird study skins worldwide uncovered no aberrant plumage of any kind, we can confidently say that such plumages are extremely rare in bowerbirds. One individual adult male Satin Bowerbird in a strikingly odd plumage, which long puzzled ornithologists and caused considerable controversy among them, proved to be a hybrid between a Satin and a Regent Bowerbird (Blunt & Frith 2005; Frith 2006). In the bird of paradise Family Paradisaeidae, to which the bowerbirds were traditionally (but no longer) thought most closely related, such aberrant plumage is more common (although still rare in terms of percentage of the total population; see Frith & Frith 1998). This is also true of the three species traditionally known as the ‘wide-gaped birds of paradise’, which once formed a Subfamily (the Cnemophinae) of the bird of paradise family Paradisaeidae (Frith 1996). However, recent biomolecular studies of these three wide-gaped species, now known as ‘satinbirds’, have shown them to form a distinctive group, constituting their own Family Cnemophilidae, distant from birds of paradise but close to some other New Guinea (and one New Zealand) bird groups; and closer to the bowerbirds than the birds of paradise. Besides our observation, the two cases mentioned above are the only other records, to our knowledge, of aberrant plumage in the Satin Bowerbird. The wild female-plumaged individual Satin Bowerbird observed and photographed at Kendall in August 2011 by Murphy had a generally pale creamy-white plumage through which the typical ventral barring of the female and immature-male plumage of the species is discernible (see Plates 1, 9–10). The dark-purple irides of this bird, typical of the species, indicate that it was not a typical albino (in which the irides would be pink). In view of this and its general appearance, we consider that it is best considered to represent some kind of schizochroic variant (a term that may include leucism; see Guay et al.
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