Birds are beings that surprise us not only because of their ability to soar through the air with their flight, but because it has been discovered that their vocalizations are more than beautiful melodies of nature, as they hide a secret language. And not only that, if you decide to delve into the different species, you will find that there are some whose behavior is extraordinary, as they use their plumage to make their partners fall in love with them and in particular, there is a species that creates an ultra-black curtain with its feathers and dances in a exotic, that it is impossible not to pay attention to it.
Birds of paradise are known for their exotic plumage patterns and because they live in a place where nature seems to have developed independently of the rest of the world. Oceania is the home of this family of birds that, within their ranks, have the strangest winged beings in nature, such as Vogelkop’s superb bird of paradise (Lophorina niedda).
The strange creature lives on the western edge of the Doberai Peninsula in New Guinea. And we say strange because unlike the birds considered the most beautiful in the world for their vibrant colors, the superb bird of paradise has its own way of showing us a beauty full of darkness.
The main characteristic of the appearance of the superb bird of paradise is that it has completely black feathers. But they are not black in the way that the feathers of other dark birds like crows, for example, are; but rather they absorb almost all the visible light that reaches them. The plumage of these strange birds has the ability to absorb up to 99.6% of the visible light radiation that reaches them, a characteristic that almost no material has in the world. The only man-made element that surpasses the Vogelkop bird’s wings is Vantablack which absorbs 99.9% of light.
This is why if you are fortunate enough to observe a Vogelkop bird from a distance, you will only perceive it floating in reality. Although of course they not only have dark plumage, they have their own tricks up their sleeve to get noticed and that they use precisely when looking for love.
A dark dance of love
During its mating courtships, the male Vogelkop’s bird of paradise performs a series of somewhat exotic movements, very ad hoc to its appearance. During the ritual, he brings out the only parts of his body that do reflect light. It first denotes a strip of electric blue feathers that are housed on its neck and extends its black plumage upwards, as if forming a completely dark fan.
Then it begins to sing to show the inside of its beak, which has a canary yellow hue, and circles around the female. To give a final touch to her magical dance, she brings out her eye spots that are located on the top of her eyes and are an electric blue. It is not known with certainty what kind of reaction this generates in the female, but in human vision, the one with a completely fluorescent mouth and eyes.
There is no doubt that nature never ceases to surprise us, but from colorful to the darkest plumages, all birds are simply amazing.