AS the US writer Nora Ephron wrote in the movie Heartburn, 'If you're looking for monogamy, you'd better marry a swan'. Some species of bird do, indeed, pair for life, yet other species including most songbirds are 'socially monogamous'. This means that, although they will form a pair for the entire breeding season, to help one another raise their young, the male (and, often, also the female) may also sneak off and try to mate with other birds.
In the male's case, this strategy is likely to mean he will have more offspring-even if he might never see some of them. For the female, mating with two or three males does not increase the number of chicks she can have, as she will still lay the same number of eggs. However, by mating with several males, she does benefit from having a range of young with different genetic qualities inherited from their fathers, some of which will be more likely to survive than others. This avoids, as it were, putting all her eggs in one basket.
Birds pair up by using two basic techniques. Songbirds, which make up more than half of all the world's bird species, have (as their name suggests) an attractive, tuneful song. This is almost always uttered by the male and serves two purposes: to attract and keep a female; and, at the same time, to warn nearby males to keep out of his territory and away from his mate.
Many larger birds, whose vocal talents are more limited, use a visual courtship display instead. This can be something quite basic, with the male simply showing off his attractive plumage to the female. Although it can also evolve into a truly memorable routine, in which both the male and female perform a complex series of dance moves, often exactly mirroring one another's movements. For humans, our own abilities to sing and dance were originally influenced by these incredible natural sounds and sights.
Bu hikaye Country Life UK dergisinin February 08, 2023 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Giriş Yap
Bu hikaye Country Life UK dergisinin February 08, 2023 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
