Before mating, birds engage in a variety of courtship behaviours to attract a partner. These behaviours—such as songs, displays, and dances—allow birds to showcase their strength, health, and reproductive potential. For females, who invest significant energy in forming, laying, and incubating eggs, selecting a mate capable of producing healthy offspring is crucial.
Courtship behaviours also help birds distinguish between species or sexes and can reduce the aggression typically associated with territorial defence.
One of the most common ways birds attract a mate is through singing. While in some avian species both sexes sing during courtship as a form of bonding, it is typically the male who performs songs to entice a female. Females often prefer males with varied and intricate song repertoires, and traits such as song structure, amplitude, and frequency have evolved as a result of sexual selection. These characteristics act as signals of a male’s fitness and reproductive potential.
Studies have demonstrated that a large song repertoire is closely linked to the size of the bird’s song control nucleus, known as the HVC (high vocal centre), in the brain. Birds with larger HVCs are often in better physical condition and have stronger immune systems. As a result, complex and powerful mating calls provide females with reliable cues about a male’s overall health and vitality. This helps females assess whether a male can provide high-quality parental care and pass on advantageous genes to their offspring.
In addition to attracting a mate, singing plays a role in establishing territory and deterring rivals, which can further demonstrate a male’s strength and dominance. In some species, males may also mimic the songs of other species, adding complexity to their repertoire and showcasing their cognitive ability and learning skills, further increasing their attractiveness to potential mates.
Birds often use an array of movements such as dives, wing flaps, head nods, and intricate steps to demonstrate their experience, fitness, and suitability as a mate. In most species, males perform these dances while females observe and assess their displays. However, in some species, courtship dances involve direct interaction between the pair, creating a collaborative and synchronised performance.
Courtship dances serve multiple purposes beyond simply attracting a mate. Preening and close physical contact during the dance help establish trust between potential partners, signalling that neither poses a threat to the other. These behaviours also help to break down territorial boundaries, fostering a sense of partnership as they prepare to mate.
In some species, elaborate group dances may even occur, where multiple males perform together in a lek to compete for the attention of observing females. These communal displays allow females to evaluate multiple suitors simultaneously, selecting the most impressive dancer as a mate.
The complexity and precision of courtship dances often indicate a male’s physical health, coordination, and energy levels. A male capable of performing intricate or high-energy displays signals that he is in excellent condition and well-equipped to contribute strong genetics and effective parental care to future offspring. Additionally, courtship dances can serve as a way for birds to demonstrate species recognition, ensuring that they do not waste time and energy courting the wrong mate.
In some cases, these dances are combined with other visual or vocal displays, creating a multifaceted performance that reinforces the bird’s desirability. Overall, courtship dances are a rich and dynamic form of communication, playing a critical role in forming bonds, building trust, and securing reproductive success.
Bright plumage and flamboyant displays of colourful feathers are powerful signals used by birds to showcase their strength, health, and genetic fitness. These displays are often a key component of courtship, helping to attract mates by demonstrating vitality and the ability to invest in reproduction. Among birds, it is typically the males who exhibit the most elaborate and striking plumage, as females often select mates based on these visual cues.
The peafowl is perhaps the most iconic example of this phenomenon. Male peacocks fan out their magnificent iridescent tail feathers, or train, to create an eye-catching display, complete with hundreds of shimmering “eyespot” patterns. The size, symmetry, and vibrancy of these eyespots are thought to indicate the male’s overall health and genetic quality. Females (peahens) use these traits to decide which males to mate with, favouring those with the most impressive displays.
This reliance on visual appeal is not limited to peafowl. Birds of paradise, native to Papua New Guinea and surrounding regions, are another striking example. Male birds of paradise perform highly choreographed displays that highlight their iridescent plumage, using specific lighting angles to enhance the visual effect. In some cases, males even prepare their “performance stage” by clearing leaves and debris from branches to ensure nothing distracts from their feathers.
Bright plumage and colourful feather displays are also common in species like mallards, cardinals, and flamingos. These displays are the result of a diet rich in carotenoids, pigments found in certain plants and insects. The intensity of a bird’s colour can be a direct indicator of its diet and health, with brighter feathers suggesting a strong immune system and better access to resources.
Flamboyant plumage and displays serve a dual purpose. Not only do they attract mates, but they also deter rivals, signalling dominance and fitness in competitive mating environments. In species where males compete for territory or access to females, vibrant colours can act as a warning to other males, reducing the likelihood of physical confrontations.
Interestingly, while these displays are advantageous in courtship, they can pose risks. Brightly coloured feathers make birds more conspicuous to predators, so only the fittest individuals can afford the trade-off between attractiveness and survival. This balancing act ensures that such traits remain reliable indicators of quality, driving the process of sexual selection.
As part of courtship, some male birds will present food to a female to demonstrate their ability to provide for her and any future offspring. This behaviour, known as courtship feeding, is a way for males to showcase their skills as providers, reassuring females of their suitability as mates. Depending on the species, the male may simply offer the food for the female to eat, or in some cases, he will transfer it directly to her mouth, mimicking the way he might feed hungry nestlings.
Courtship feeding serves several purposes. Beyond signalling the male’s ability to gather resources, it can also provide the female with a valuable source of nutrients during the energy-intensive process of egg production. This nutritional boost may improve her overall condition and increase the likelihood of producing healthy eggs and strong chicks.
Robins are a particularly well-known species for this behaviour. Male robins can often be seen offering their partners juicy insects, worms, or berries during courtship. The act strengthens the pair bond and gives the female confidence in the male’s capability to help rear their young.
In terns, males will catch fish and present it to females, sometimes after an elaborate aerial display. In species such as puffins, males bring their mates small fish, often demonstrating their agility and hunting prowess in the process. Similarly, blue tits and great tits will offer seeds, insects, or caterpillars to their prospective partners, reinforcing their value as providers.
In some species, courtship feeding also plays a role in prolonging the courtship period, allowing the pair to synchronise their reproductive cycles. This ensures that both the male and female are ready to mate and rear chicks at the same time, maximising the chances of reproductive success.
Some birds are renowned for their extraordinary courtship behaviours involving nest-building and elaborate displays to attract mates. Among the most famous are bowerbirds, which create intricate structures called bowers to showcase their creativity, resourcefulness, and fitness to potential mates. Male bowerbirds meticulously gather a wide variety of objects to decorate their bowers, including natural items such as shells, flowers, feathers, stones, and berries. They may also incorporate man-made items like coins, bottle caps, and pieces of glass, adding a unique, eye-catching touch. The placement and organisation of these decorations are carefully planned, often sorted by colour or size, to appeal to the discerning eye of a female.
While bowerbirds take the art of courtship displays to an extreme, they are not alone in using structures or nests as part of their mating rituals. Many other bird species engage in nest-building to demonstrate their suitability as a mate. For instance, male weaverbirds craft intricate, hanging nests from grasses and twigs, sometimes creating multiple nests to attract a female. The quality of the nest’s construction plays a key role in the female’s decision-making process, as it reflects the male’s strength, skill, and ability to provide a safe environment for raising chicks.
In some species, the nest serves as a marker of territory as well as a courtship display. Male wrens, for example, build multiple “dummy nests” within their territory, and the female selects the nest she prefers. After choosing her mate, she may decide to use the selected nest or construct her own, depending on the species and her specific needs.
Nest-building as part of courtship behaviour is not limited to elaborate constructions. Some birds keep it simple but effective. For example, male penguins in species such as Adélie and gentoo penguins present pebbles to females as part of their courtship. These pebbles are then incorporated into the nest, and the act of offering them demonstrates the male’s ability to gather resources.
Aerial displays are some of the most dramatic and awe-inspiring courtship behaviours in the bird world. Birds use acrobatics, high-speed dives, and soaring flights to catch the attention of potential mates. Raptors engage in aerial courtship displays that often include locking talons and tumbling through the air in dramatic spirals. This behaviour not only reinforces pair bonds but also showcases their strength and coordination.
Male hummingbirds perform dazzling courtship dives. They ascend high into the sky and then plummet downwards in a rapid arc, often producing a distinctive sound with their tail feathers during the dive.
In species like lapwings and snipes, males perform zig-zag flights or fluttering displays to demonstrate their agility. The male Wilson’s snipe, for example, creates a “winnowing” sound with its tail feathers during its aerial display to attract a mate.
