{"id":1267,"date":"2013-04-25T19:56:28","date_gmt":"2013-04-25T19:56:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christielau.com\/blog\/?p=1267"},"modified":"2013-05-03T05:23:44","modified_gmt":"2013-05-03T05:23:44","slug":"bird-of-paradise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.christielau.com\/blog\/bird-of-paradise\/","title":{"rendered":"Bird of Paradise"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I have mentioned <a href=\"http:\/\/www.christielau.com\/page_me.html\">before <\/a>that one of my greatest inspirations for my fascination with animals was ignited by the Planet Earth documentary series. The &#8220;Jungles&#8221; episode had a segment about birds of paradise and behind the scenes footage with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/TimLamanPhoto?ref=ts&amp;fref=ts\">Tim Laman<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/BirdsofParadiseProject\">Ed Scholes<\/a> waiting for days to get a glimpse of a male courtship display. Their dedication to their dream of documenting all 39 species, and on the birds&#8217; terms, is just incredibly beautiful to me.<\/p>\n<p>Here is an introduction to the species prepared by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Birds-of-Paradise Project Introduction\" width=\"470\" height=\"264\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YTR21os8gTA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Earlier this month, I finally got to hear them speak about their research at the  Roy Thomson Hall as the finale for the National Geographic lecture  series!!!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.christielau.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Christie-Lau-bird-of-paradise-meeting-Tim-Laman-Ed-Schole_blog_cl.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1269\" title=\"Christie Lau bird of paradise meeting Tim Laman Ed Schole_blog_cl\" src=\"http:\/\/www.christielau.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Christie-Lau-bird-of-paradise-meeting-Tim-Laman-Ed-Schole_blog_cl.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"477\" height=\"477\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.christielau.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Christie-Lau-bird-of-paradise-meeting-Tim-Laman-Ed-Schole_blog_cl.jpg 1500w, https:\/\/www.christielau.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Christie-Lau-bird-of-paradise-meeting-Tim-Laman-Ed-Schole_blog_cl-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.christielau.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Christie-Lau-bird-of-paradise-meeting-Tim-Laman-Ed-Schole_blog_cl-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.christielau.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Christie-Lau-bird-of-paradise-meeting-Tim-Laman-Ed-Schole_blog_cl-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.christielau.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Christie-Lau-bird-of-paradise-meeting-Tim-Laman-Ed-Schole_blog_cl-59x59.jpg 59w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 477px) 100vw, 477px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.christielau.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Christie-Lau-Bird-of-Paradise-detail_blog_cl.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1270\" title=\"Christie Lau Bird of Paradise detail_blog_cl\" src=\"http:\/\/www.christielau.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Christie-Lau-Bird-of-Paradise-detail_blog_cl.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"441\" height=\"430\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.christielau.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Christie-Lau-Bird-of-Paradise-detail_blog_cl.jpg 700w, https:\/\/www.christielau.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Christie-Lau-Bird-of-Paradise-detail_blog_cl-300x292.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.christielau.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Christie-Lau-Bird-of-Paradise-detail_blog_cl-59x59.jpg 59w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 441px) 100vw, 441px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The notion that animals have culture is one that really intrigues me. In birds of paradise, we see sexual selection at its most heightened and particular. Female birds of paradise appreciate shape shifting dancing, loud calls and feathers in crazy forms and shimmery and fluorescent colours. \u00a0They expect a clean display ground and a regular vine a male bird uses to display and another for her to evaluate. As people we do not usually have to worry about being eaten or finding food, so we have a lot of time and other thoughts to occupy our minds with. Similarly, birds of paradise live in a situation where there are not many predators and fruit as their main diet is regularly available, so their energy is focused on being so pretttttttyyyy.\u00a0I think it&#8217;s really cool that we also find these courtship displays stunning, like there is a recipe for what life on earth collectively perceives as beautiful.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.christielau.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Christie-Lau-Bird-of-Paradise_blog_cl.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1268\" title=\"Christie Lau Bird of Paradise_blog_cl\" src=\"http:\/\/www.christielau.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Christie-Lau-Bird-of-Paradise_blog_cl.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"449\" height=\"607\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.christielau.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Christie-Lau-Bird-of-Paradise_blog_cl.jpg 449w, https:\/\/www.christielau.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Christie-Lau-Bird-of-Paradise_blog_cl-221x300.jpg 221w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 449px) 100vw, 449px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Growing up I loved mythology, like mermaids, unicorns&#8230; all that! But when I saw these birds on the TV screen for the first time, I saw that we already live in such a mysterious and surprising world, only we can really seek it and it is more glorious and intricate than anything we could imagine. Ed Scholes and Tim Laman have a Bird of Paradise Project website, which introduces all 39 species of birds very thoroughly and is up to date with their future plans!<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"ZjDjvJ9aNA\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.birdsofparadiseproject.org\/\">Birds-of-Paradise Project<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; visibility: hidden;\" title=\"&#8220;Birds-of-Paradise Project&#8221; &#8212; Birds-of-Paradise Project\" src=\"https:\/\/www.birdsofparadiseproject.org\/embed\/#?secret=4HSkneUDKJ#?secret=ZjDjvJ9aNA\" data-secret=\"ZjDjvJ9aNA\" width=\"470\" height=\"265\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\n<div id=\"attachment_1291\" style=\"width: 210px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.christielau.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Christie-Lau_Tim-Laman-signature_blog_cl.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1291\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1291\" title=\"Christie Lau_Tim Laman signature_blog_cl\" src=\"http:\/\/www.christielau.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Christie-Lau_Tim-Laman-signature_blog_cl.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"90\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1291\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tim Laman&#39;s handwriting!<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have mentioned before that one of my greatest inspirations for my fascination with animals was ignited by the Planet Earth documentary series. The &ldquo;Jungles&rdquo; episode had a segment about birds of paradise and behind the scenes footage with Tim Laman and Ed Scholes waiting for days to get a glimpse of a male courtship [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-colour-pieces"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christielau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christielau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christielau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christielau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christielau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1267"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/www.christielau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1285,"href":"https:\/\/www.christielau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1267\/revisions\/1285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christielau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christielau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christielau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}