David Attenborough did a video series called The Life of Birds.  One section is called Finding Partners, and shows and desribes the mating plumage, gift-giving and rituals of different male birds in efforts to entice the females, and convince them that they are Superior Mates.  Many of the rituals are practical, and tend to ensure that the most Practical Qualities of species are propagated in the species: food collection, good nests, beautiful songs, biggest blow-sacks, plumage displays etc.

  Not so with the Vogelkop Bowerbird in New Guinea.  Their wooing is entirely impractical; they build enormous artistic displays by which the females  judge them.  Males build large grass huts with expansive front porches on the ground to entice females, and decorate them with laborious artistic displays that are unique to each male.   They are not showy birds, otherwise, in any sense.  They sing well, but their plumage is olive-colored and not fancy, which helps to ensure their survival since their feathers are of no interest to poachers.

You may find yourselves tickled that in the bird world, it is the male who must go out of his way to entice the females to mate with him.  It is the males who, effectively, wear the spike heels and lipstick and show some cleavage. :-}  And face it, if a liberal/progressive only ever visited the most popular site online (Huffingtonpost) , one could get the idea that ALL women were still about well...cleavage, fashion, and ...some politics thrown in for good measure.

Hummingbirds start at around 11:30 on the video; the Vogelkop Bowerbird-artistes at 16:25.  I hope if you watch it, you are thrilled.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJgfcOd1R7E&feature=PlayList&p=aYy3a60ZYJo

Info on Vogel can be found here on avianweb about their huts and front porches, etc.

http://avianweb.com/vogelkopbowerbirds.html