Late but not forgotten, I'll return to re-sharing these birds of paradise I illustrated for the board game Birdwatcher!
Left to right, top to bottom:
Male Blue Bird-of-Paradise foraging. I chose not to draw this bird displaying as the displaying male and attendant female are on the box cover.
Male Black Sicklebill, resting on a bare snag as is customary. Their display transforms them into a strange long horizontal shape that barely looks like a bird, and while very cool, will not have fit on a vertical card. The weird lumpy/circular feathers jutting off above his shoulders are not the wings, they are long stacked breast feathers that are used in the display.
Displaying male Greater Bird-of-Paradise. This somehow became the "classic" example of a bird of paradise and is one of the species with a display shape similar to the flower of the same name, with his red wings held forward of the big fluffy yellow display plumes. Those yellow feathers are not his tail, they grow off the back - notice his tail here, small and red and folded under all the yellow.
Displaying male Red Bird-of-Paradise. They do exactly this, dangling upside down with wings and tail and display plumes all held to make this strange curling shape, and then they sort of wobble to show off how shaped they are. Good choice, man.
