Yesterday, I was excited to receive this month's issue of the one magazine I subscribe to.


Inside, I came across these land art sculptures which I found very impressive:









I had turned into the article from the back, so I didn't see who had made the pieces.
While the photographs themselves are perhaps a bit over dramatic, I'm fond of this genre of work and enjoy it's somewhat recent growth in popularity. It also occurred to me this may be an artist from somewhere in Africa or South America following in some local tradition.

There is an indie-rock band called The Bowerbirds who I came across while looking up information about this artist. I rarely come across new music I enjoy, so was pleasantly surprised about this band.
The reason I came across this band while looking this artist is because these pieces are made by actual Bowerbirds:





That is right! Surprise! They are made by birds! Surprise! They are called Bowerbirds, in honor of the indie rock band!
I think this is so interesting! Birds! Making art!
The birds make the 'bower', which is the little structure, to mate inside. The attractiveness of the structure and the decoration outside are used to help lure a potential mate. If the female likes the males creation plus his dancing(seriously), they have sex for about 5 seconds in the Bower.
This one is my favorite:





While looking up the subject, I came across this npr piece talking about possible evolutionary sources of our aesthetic sensibilities, which draws parallels to Bowerbirds building bowers.. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4057069
The last fellow who speaks says something pretty similar to my view on aesthetics.

There are two basic types of structures built by these birds and this is the other one. It is referred to as a 'May Pole'




I tried to write this so you feel surprised, maybe even scared, and possibly even so angry you want to hurt someone when you learned it was made by birds. My head is feeling rather foggy right now. Fog like an eagle.