King of Saxony Bird-of-Paradise!

Male King of Saxony bird-of-paradise displaying.

We left things hanging earlier this week when I described getting my first look at a King of Saxony bird-of-paradise. I would have been back with the goods sooner but my trusty Mac laptop needed a brain transplant in the interim. But we're back now! And one of us has a new brain!

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Somehow the gods were smiling on us that morning—perhaps to make up for the long journey we'd had the day before and the cold, rainy, late-afternoon arrival at our first bit of decent bird habitat. Now, standing along the Highlands Highway, with a singing male King of Saxony bird-of-paradise in front of us, we might not have imagined things could get any better. And then the sun came up behind us, illuminating the scene in a wash of golden color, burning off just enough of the morning mist so we could get sparklingly clear looks at this amazing beast before us.

He waved his head plumes back and forth, uttering the occasional song. We stood gob-smacked for a spell, and then came to life as we realized we had a chance to capture images of this aparition.


Imagine a large black, yellow, and white roundish bird with giant, spidery, iridescent feathers coming (seemingly) out of its ears. I struggled to find words to describe the head plumes. They were like pheasant tail feathers in length, but their bright metallic blue spots made them look like something from a Lady Gaga video.


One of our group asked "What King of Saxony was this bird named for?" I did not hear the answer ( it turns out it was Albert King of Saxony, whose full name was Frederick Augustus Albert Anton Ferdinand Joseph Karl Maria Baptist Nepomuk Wilhelm Xaver Georg Fidelis—a name as long as the head plumes of the bird that bears his moniker.) I guess we're lucky they did not pick one of his other names for this magnificent species. Nepomuk bird-of-paradise does not really cut it.

I thought of something different to myself, and apparently spoke this out loud: "They should just call it the King Sexy bird-of-paradise!" On this point we all concurred.

Here is the video I shot via my digiscoping rig. I apologize in advance for the background sounds of me struggling to pull another camera out of my waist pack. The King Sexy had me all shook up.