They go from expected to extraordinary in a blink of an eye.
You’re awestricken; they transform themselves into something that you’ve never seen before.
They swagger
and serenade,
they dance
and display.
They’re unlike any creatures on earth
and one of the most astounding phenomena ever witnessed:
The Birds-of-Paradise.
Found here in the nearly impenetrable mountains And valleys of the island of New Guinea,
in the greatest remaining tract of rain forest in the entire Asia-Pacific region,
they exist nowhere else on earth.
The vast, vast majority of the land around here has no road access, they’re just looking
up into a wall of steep slope and you can tell that this is just ridge after ridge and valley after valley.
Evolutionary biologist Ed Scholes and wildlife photographer Tim Laman
have spent the better part of a decade trekking into this isolated wilderness
in pursuit of all thirty-nine species of these miraculous birds.
Well, the only way to see the king bird-of-paradise is to climb up into the trees where they live,
so I’m headed up to my platform.
They've been photographing,
analyzing, and recording their every move,
every behavior,
in an attempt to comprehend their secrets, and in doing so
revealing extreme examples of the miracle of evolution.
The birds-of-paradise represent one of these singular events in evolution that stand out
that are extraordinary.
They’re something that’s without precedent, something that evolved that’s so unique and
so exceptional
that you’re driven to say why or, you know, how did that happen, how did that come to be?
The birds-of-paradise are remarkable not only for their exceptional beauty,
and almost other worldly appearance,
but as veritable living textbooks on adaptation and sexual selection.
The females are looking at this whole package
and can discern something about him by minor variation.
The more complex it is the harder it is to make it look right. If one little
feature is out of whack you’re going to be able to tell.
What about New Guinea has led to these birds evolving here and nowhere else?
What function do their outrageous plumes and ornaments play,
and what exactly are they doing?
For me it still always goes back to the original driving question, you know, and
that's how did it happen? How did the birds-of-paradise come to be?
Witness diverse strategies of evolution at work
and experience one of nature's most extraordinary hidden wonders
up close.
A world where beauty and behavior are intertwined,
a spectacle not possible
any other place on earth.