Ever see an umbrella bird?

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	Long-wattled Umbrella bird

The long-wattled umbrella bird gains its name from the rather bizarre and striking features of the male of the species. The male bird has a large crest, composed of hair-like feathers, extending over the bill, and a long, black feathered wattle hanging from the middle of the chest . The wattle reaches a length of up to 45 centimeters  and can be inflated during courtship, when it resembles a large, open pine cone . During flight, it is retracted and held against the chest . The female and juvenile resemble the male but are smaller, and both the crest and wattle are greatly reduced.  The long-wattled umbrellabird is usually silent, except during displays, when the male makes a protracted grunting noise, as well as a low-frequency booming call that is audible to humans at a distance of up to one kilometer away.

While much of the long-wattled umbrella bird’s breeding biology is still unclear,  its courtship behavior is known to be complex and elaborate. Throughout the year, male birds can be found gathered at established sites, termed “leks”, where they make exuberant displays to the female birds . The male uses a combination of raising its crest, swinging its wattle, and making grunting vocalizations to attract a mate  After mating, the female is solely responsible for building the nest, incubating the eggs and brooding the chicks .
Puzzlingly, in at least one part of its range, male long-wattled umbrella bird displaying activity peaks during the dry season (August to December), around six months before the period of greatest female nesting activity. It is not yet clear why this disparity occurs, but possibly it is because the male relies on large quantities of fruit, which may be more abundant during the dry season, to sustain its energetic display . In contrast, when nesting, the female may be more dependent on the abundance of insects in the rainy season to give the energy and nutrients required to produce eggs and brood chicks. ^. In order to maximize chances of offspring survival at this time, it is thought that the female birds might either store male sperm for a long period after mating in the dry season, or they may mate with the small proportion of superior males still capable of displaying at the leks during the rainy season .
The consumption of large quantities of fruit means that the long-wattled umbrella bird plays an important ecological role within its habitat as a seed dispersal agent. Along with fruit, this opportunistic species will also take large insects, amphibians and reptiles .

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