Feature film — 1996

Bowerbird: Playboy of the Australian Rainforest (1996)

The film presents one season in the life of the sometimes hard to find Satin Bowerbird - the fascinating "Playboy of the rainforest" whose imaginatively constructed arbour is designed purely for seduction. You'll see thrilling close up footage of the Bowerbird's rainforest community including echidnas, lyrebirds, sugar gliders, pademelons and the startling bright blue Lamington spiny crayfish. But you'll also meet the rainforest predators goannas, snakes, dingoes and spotted-tailed quolls as well as witnessing an amazing battle between a host of army beetles and swarming bulldog ants the largest ants in the world. But while the hero is the Satin Bowerbird, the real star is the primitive rainforest surrounding O'Reilly's Rainforest Guesthouse. The scenery, plants and animals are lovingly captured by night and by day in this intimate and revealing story of the Queensland rainforest.