The Gardener Bird

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Moushumi Mohanty

Look at this nest. Doesn’t it remind you of a hut? It is built by a bird with an appropriate name. It is called the gardener bird. It works hard at building its house and decorating it.

The Gardener Bird [Illustration by Shridevi R.]
The Gardener Bird [Illustration by Shridevi R.]

And, after building the house, it makes a garden around it.

The gardener bird likes colourful objects. So, its house is always surrounded with colourful flowers and shells. These objects are not just thrown together haphazardly. The bird arranges them very carefully and even tries out different patterns before deciding on the final look of the garden.

Some species of gardener birds even decorate the interior of their nests. They paint them as well. How, you may ask. It makes colour by mixing its own saliva with various materials. Sometimes, it even uses ‘brushes’ made of small bunches of leaves.

Gardener birds live in clearings in the forests of New Guinea.

Regent Bowerbirds live in New Guinea and are known to make a garden of flowers, shells and moss.
Regent Bowerbirds live in New Guinea and are known to make a garden of flowers, shells and moss.

173 words | 1 minutes
Readability: Grade 6 (11-12 year old children)
Based on Flesch–Kincaid readability scores

Filed under: planet earth
Tags: #birds, #garden, #shells, #guinea

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