The male satin bower bird is a rainforest bird that builds. It constructs a bower, a platform of fine sticks and twigs with two walls that arch inwards and sometimes meet overhead. This is not a nest, but a display area. The bower bird decorates the walls of the bower with a mixture of vegetable juices or charcoal combined with the bird.
Blue drinking straws, other blue objects, and any bright objects
the male can find are used to decorate the 'bower'.
This is not a nest but a 'love den' to lure a mate!.
Decorations are often added, usually blue in color - feathers, flowers, berries, shells. If humans are about, the satin bower bird picks up their discarded items, too - blue bags, blue string and glass, packets and envelopes, even drinking straws. In spring, the male uses the decorated bower for spectacular dance displays to impress a watching female and convince her he is an able mate.
To test male mating habits, a graduate researcher in the Zoology Department proposes creating a controllable female Bowerbird model. Mechanical or electrical, but it has to be real enough fool the males. It will be used in the Australian rainforests, so it must be rugged and simple in design. Beyond the constraints listed in the details, the internal mechanisms are wide open to your ingenuity and creativity!
The researcher is shipping out in July! That is the deadline for completion.