I know something about turning gray. My hair has been various stages of gray for more than twenty-five years and now little remains of my hair’s original color. When I saw Mady for the first time after many months, I realized she is starting to turn gray on her face. She turned 9 years old on July 4. I can’t believe it’s been that long since I first set eyes on her as a one year old in Redding in 2008.
Another bowerbird ubiquitous in the Australian Gold Coast rainforest, is the Regent Bowerbird. This bird, with its beautiful glistening black and gold feathers, is hard to miss. We never saw his bower but both male and female Regent Bowerbirds and immature males were always first in line at the daily morning feeding ritual. The male Regent Bowerbird in flight is gorgeous and try as I might to get a good shot of him in flight, I failed to do so. But, I did get lots of him perched either in the rainforest or waiting for the right moment to swoop in and grab a morsel in the morning.
The females don’t look at all like the males, with black beaks, brown eyes, and brown mottled feathers. The immature males look like females except they have the yellow irises and orange beaks of the mature male. It takes them 2 to 5 years to develop the beautiful black and gold feathers. The last photograph in this series is the immature male.
