In the "Museum of Architecture" birds have a special department. The exhibits exhibited here by the bizarre forms, the thoroughness of decoration and the richness of the ornaments, perhaps surpass all that has been seen before.

But these structures definitely cannot be admitted to the competition of bird's nests, because their biological meaning is of a completely different kind, and scientists could not solve it right away.

Opening huts

When the first Europeans entered the tropical forests of New Guinea, teeming with mosquitoes, malaria mosquitoes and inhabited by warlike tribes of cannibal Papuans, they saw unusual structures among the local wonders. Later they received the name of huts or arbor birds.

Intrigued travelers at first suggested that the mysterious sites in the wilds of the forest, carefully laid out with moss, decorated with various objects and bizarre constructions from branches, were the work of the Papuans, who celebrate here some particularly gloomy religious rites. It soon became clear, however, that with all the extravagance of their beliefs and rituals, the Papuans had nothing to do with it, and all these intricate hedges, arches and huts were built by small birds.

Ornithologists spent a lot of work in order to find clutches or hut chicks in these, as was believed for a long time, unusual nests. It was only after many years of futile searches that it was possible to establish that they were nothing more than specially equipped ritual sites for love dates between males and females.The construction and decoration of gazebos and huts is exclusively done by males, who put their whole soul into this matter and are no longer interested in anything in life.

All the worries of raising offspring, from the construction of simple cup-shaped nests in a fork in the tree to the feeding of chicks, lie on hardworking females. But it would be wrong to think that males, having escaped from worries about chicks, spend time in laziness and idleness. On the contrary, male huts are great workers, and they have almost more worries during the breeding season than females.

Building a nest - hut

First you need to find a construction site. This requires a small, well-lit meadow, surrounded on all sides by impassable jungle. It takes a lot of work to clear the place, remove the fallen leaves, pluck out too tall grass, break off the branches hanging over the clearing so that nothing would prevent the future girlfriend from admiring the future building. Then comes the time for laying the foundation, and here you have to work in the "sweat of the face."

The main material for the platform is ordinary moss. There is no shortage of it, but it is necessary to collect about thirty kilograms in order to lay out on the ground a perfectly shaped, absolutely round platform with a diameter of about two meters. And today, scientists can not figure out what kind of compasses the huts use to mark the boundaries of their platforms.

Having finished with the platform, the male begins to erect vertical structural elements.Different types of huts act in their own special way, but the two types of structures are most common. In some species, males stick branches vertically directly into the platform in a row one after another, and in the end the building turns into a narrow corridor formed by two parallel walls of branches. In other species, branches are laid at one end on a common vertical support, say, on the trunk of a young tree, in which case the finished building resembles a hut or gazebo. In some species of gazebo birds, only small twigs and sticks are used as material, which the males attach with their sticky saliva horizontally to the central support, so that something like a brush for washing bottles is obtained.

Decoration

Then comes the turn of jewelry, in search of which the males roam the entire district. What you will not find on their sites! There are multi-colored elytra of beetles, butterfly wings, shells of forest snails, all kinds of fruits and bright flower petals, feathers of birds, pieces of lichens, pebbles. If people live nearby, huts enthusiastically carry coins, metal and plastic trinkets, bottle caps, keys and the like from the village. It has been noticed that huts have a special addiction to objects of an unusual shape or a rare color.

So, blue and blue feathers, flowers and butterfly wings are in special demand. Males arrange jewelry in strict order, in separate clusters: acorns do not mix with shells, flower petals - with leaves, butterfly wings - with eliters (elytra) of beetles.Males perfectly remember the location of their wealth and rigorously restore order after a daily midday rainfall. In the intervals between worries about replenishing the jewelry collection, males of some types of huts paint branches and supports with dark-brown fruit juice.

At the beginning of the wedding season, males spend the lion's share of the time on the grounds, sitting on a branch not far from the building, singing loudly and carefully peering into the bushes surrounding the meadow: will the modest "dress" of the long-awaited guest flicker? Seeing the female, the male sings even louder, sits down on the platform and starts scurrying between the walls of the hut, either running into the corridor or running along the outer walls. At the same time, the feathered gentleman runs up to the jewelry every now and then, touches and picks them with his beak, as if boasting to the female the rich decoration of his bridal chamber.

He does not try in vain, because female huts are among the picky brides and sympathize only with the most talented builders. The better the platform is laid out with moss, the more carefully the hut is built, the richer the jewelry looks and the more rare items there are, the more the builder can count on the favor of the representative of the fair sex.

Current sites of males are usually located quite far from each other. Nevertheless, the neighbors are well aware of their location and regularly carry out pirate raids into other people's possessions in order to steal some rare jewelry, disorder the rest, and if you are lucky, then thoroughly ruffle the entire building.Of course, the alien dares to do all these atrocities only in the absence of the owner, so the huts avoid for a long time leaving their sites unattended.

Young people are gradually adopting the art of erecting and decorating huts among adult masters, sitting for a long time near their sites and observing the construction process, the selection and methods of placing jewelry, comprehending the science of marriage dances and the proper treatment of “ladies”. Proceeding further to independent construction, young birds in all respects copy teachers, which is why a special style of buildings and decorations is gradually spreading among the huts in this area, which can noticeably differ from the artistic tastes established in other settlements of the same species.