About the Lawes's Parotia
Lawes's parotia is a medium-sized passerine of the bird-of-paradise family, Paradisaeidae. It is distributed and endemic to mountain forests of southeast and eastern Papua New Guinea. Occasionally, the eastern parotia is considered a subspecies of P. lawesii. The species is similar to the western parotia.
Text adapted from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
ID tip
The male is a velvet black bird with an erectile silvery white forehead crest, iridescent purple blue nape and golden green breast plumes which are structurally colored. The breast plumes have V-shaped barbules, creating thin-film microstructures that strongly reflect two different colors, bright blue-green and orange-yellow. When the bird moves the color switches sharply between these two colors, rather than drifting iridescently. During courtship, the male bird systematically makes small movements to attract females, so the structures must have evolved through sexual selection.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Where it lives
When to see it
Peak activity in July · a variable species across most of its range
Easily confused with
Wahnes's ParotiaParotia wahnesiThe male has an iridescent yellow-green breast shield, elongated black plumes, three erectile spatule head wires behind each eye, coppery-bronzed nasal tuft feathers and long, wedge-shaped tail feathers.
Western ParotiaParotia sefilataLike other birds-of-paradise, the western parotia is sexually dimorphic.
Learn the Lawes's Parotia for real
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