It's early morning in a Peruvian cloud forest.

Here in a damp ravine, a special event is about to occur.

Hopping around in the deep green foliage of the trees, there's a gathering of about 12 bright orange birds.

They are males of the species Rupa Cola Peruvianus, the Andean

cock of the rock. In the right lighting, these birds seem to glow from within,

with a red-orange radiance. Each male sports a weird, disc-shaped crest of feathers on his head,

extending all the way to the tip of the bill. It looks to me

kind of like an orange slice glued to the bird's head. In any case, this species is unmistakable

and amazing. Male Andean cocks of the rock gather in the early mornings and late afternoons

in special places like this forested ravine for one purpose only,

to convince females to mate with them. This gathering site is what we call a leck, L-E-K. Males in the

lech perch on branches five to 15 meters off the ground. They pair up one male with another and then act out ritualized

displays for each other. They jump, bow, flap their wings, snap their bills, and make a general

racket. All of this activity ramps up and reaches a fever pitch when a female enters

the leck area.

The female has a shape similar to the male, and she even has her own disc-shaped crest,

but her plumage is much less showy. She's more of a brownish or deep red color.

Females visit the leck to select their mates. Each female assesses the appearances and performances of the males and eventually chooses one. After mating, she will head off

to build a nest out of mud at the entrance to a cave. She raises her chicks all by herself.

The male just gets back to preening his orange-tastic feathers and gets ready to put on another

frenzied performance. Bring on the next female! These birds have a

polygynous breeding system, where at least some males mate with more than one female, but each

...