 Males of many species , ranging from the widely introduced ring @-@ necked pheasant to Africa 's many whydahs , have one or more elongated pairs of rectrices , which play an often @-@ critical role in their courtship rituals . The outermost pair of rectrices in male lyrebirds are extremely long and strongly curved at the ends . These plumes are raised up over the bird 's head ( along with a fine spray of modified uppertail coverts ) during his extraordinary display . Rectrix modification reaches its pinnacle among the birds of paradise , which display an assortment of often bizarrely modified feathers , ranging from the extremely long plumes of the ribbon @-@ tailed astrapia ( nearly three times the length of the bird itself ) to the dramatically coiled twin plumes of the magnificent bird @-@ of @-@ paradise . 
