Winged Seduction: Birds of Paradise

 

Release Date: November 22, 2012

Watch Date: May 6, 2023

"Shape shifting, color shaking, dancing, singing, dazzling transformers - the fabled birds of paradise were virtually unknown until two modern-day explorers spent the better part of a decade sleeping in tents and dangling from the rain forest canopy to document all 39 species of these flamboyant birds."

    I don't know if you have lived if you haven't watched your husband try to mimic a bird of paradise's mating ritual. I don't think most people can help themselves but to try and copy these amazing, albeit extremely horny, birds. My husband does it with...not an unexpected level of enthusiasm, and it almost makes me want to watch more documentaries about these animals just for the live performance I receive.

    This is probably the best National Geographic special that we've watched thus far, and that's mostly because it's meant to be about the effort it takes two men to get the footage of these exotic creatures, and not so much about the birds. The birds are kind of a bonus, so when they're on screen it's exciting and entertaining, and when you're just watching two guys climb a tree or tell you how they plan to capture footage of the desired behavior, you don't feel let down because that's what you knew you were getting yourself into.

    I even got to learn a new fact, which was that all of these birds descended from one crow like ancestor. I love crows, so now I have to love these birds more by definition. The idea of sexual selection over natural selection was also explained in a very concise way that I had never had done before, which I appreciated. The females look for specific traits, so the males with those traits pass on their genes and over the process of evolution those traits become more and more flamboyant and extreme. The females, then, need to spend more of their time looking at the males, because of the more flamboyant mating rituals and displays and it goes on and on forever. In another millennium who can say how much more chaotic these birds will become. But, that's the joy of not having any predators you need to try to outwit to survive. You can, instead, spend all of your energy trying to get laid.

    It's short, it's sweet, and maybe it's just because the last documentary we watched was an extremely long one about Star Wars that I swear Bob will spend the rest of his life trying to change my opinion on, but I quite enjoyed it. We also had woken up early to watch the coronation, much to my red, white and blue blooded husband's dismay - but he loves me, so he did it - and the pomp and circumstance and over-the-topness of the morning was equally matched by these birds in the evening, and I kind of like that juxtaposition. When you're top bird and nothing can touch you, why not make yourself as pretty as possible and spend all your time preening for others?