In Praise of (Bird) Fathers

As Father’s Day approaches, obviously I can’t help but think about dads. There are all kinds of dads out there: wonderful dads, active dads, cold and distant dads, up close and personal dads, mean dads, deadbeat dads, disciplinarian dads, laidback dads - you name it!

There are also all kinds of bird dads. But, through our cultural lens, we often project our expectations of human dad behavior onto the bird world. For example, when describing birds in the process of nesting behaviors - building the nest, sitting on the nest, feeding the young’uns after they hatch - I always hear people use the pronoun “she.” In many of our minds, the human parent doing the most to manage the household and take care of babies is the mom. Sometimes our projections lead us to get quite heated about perceived fatherly neglect in the bird world. The other day I was reading in online forums about people’s experiences with killdeer nests in their yard, and one irate woman noted that the female killdeer sat on the nest 24 hours a day while her “no good husband” didn’t bother to stick around.

Fascinating, huh? Not only are we characterizing bird mating behaviors as marriage, but we’re also judging bird morality based on whether or not their actions conform to our human expectations of gender and marriage!

Once you start looking at bird behavior, you might be surprised to find that dads are integral to the nesting and caregiving processes of most bird species. They don’t just love ‘em and leave ‘em, as we may be tempted to think. Let’s take the example of the killdeer, assumed by this one woman to be a deadbeat dad. Killdeer pairs mate for life, they go around marking out potential nesting sites together, and they take pretty equal turns sitting on the nest. I know from experience with a killdeer nest in our garden that the male is much more aggressive about chasing potential threats away from the nest than the female. After the first nest hatches, the parents take the chicks away to a safer place and share the responsibility of caring for them until they can fly within about 30 days.

The northern cardinal dad is a devoted caregiver after the female incubates the eggs, feeding her and the chicks in the nest until they fledge. While the female sits on a second nest, the male continues to feed and look after the older, fledged young, while also feeding the female and guarding their territory. By the time the second set of eggs hatch, the older siblings are ready to live on their own, and the dad can turn his attention to the next brood of nestlings. It’s hard to find a male cardinal at the end of the breeding season who isn’t exhausted, with bare patches and bedraggled feathers, badly in need of a molt.

Songbird males can also serve as mentors to younger males. I’ve just recently learned how a chipping sparrow male learns to sing. He doesn’t learn from his dad. Instead, when chipping sparrows return to their breeding grounds a years after a young male hatches, he seeks out an older male in the territory he wishes to inhabit and learns that male’s song. An older male will not tolerate another adult male in his territory, but he allows this new young fellow to move in and learn his song, even knowing that that younger male may eventually seek to take over his territory.

Of course, a few birds are, in fact, deadbeat dads. Since they are so cute and beloved, you may be disappointed to know that the ruby-throated hummingbird male is one of the most neglectful. He flies around in all his ruby-throated glory and mates with one, two, three, or however many females he can find around his territory. After that, a female builds a nest, lays (typically) two eggs, and raises the chicks, all on her own. There is some probability that the male does allow her to feed in his territory without fighting her off, as he would another male, but that’s the extent of his care for her or the young. By the time the young hatch, the male has often left the territory. And then guess what happens: as soon as they’re old enough, her young will start fighting with the poor female over food sources in the territory. I’m sure the complaining woman mentioned above would have plenty to say about these ungrateful children!

So there are all kinds of bird dads, and they may or may not live up to our human standards (just like human dads). Just as it’s interesting to think about the social, cultural, economic, and other pressures that lead to certain kinds of human dad behaviors, it’s interesting to think about the territorial, food, climatic, and other kinds of factors that lead bird dads toward behaviors that will (hopefully) ensure the survival of their offspring and species. Happy Father’s Day to all dads, bird or human, with appreciation for all that you do!

Cute - or Deadly?

It’s a beautiful week in central Maryland, and I’m on spring break, which means I’ve been out a lot, looking at birds. As I walked along the Potomac River yesterday morning, there were Eastern bluebirds everywhere, one of my favorites. I love that flash of blue in the sunshine, that bit of chestnut brown on the breast, their big, round cartoon eyes, and their perky little song.

But these particular birds were not being cartoonish and perky; they were fighting. There were eight total, four males and four females. They seemed to be fighting over territory, with each pair trying to run off the other pairs. However, it may be that they were fighting over each other. It’s early in the mating season, and pairs may not yet be securely established. Plus, although most songbirds are generally monogamous, both male and female Eastern bluebirds always look to get a little action on the side. (This article provides a concise summary of bluebird mating habits with more such fascinating information.)

Whatever the reason, the fighting continued for the entire twenty minutes that I stood there watching. The birds chased, dove, flapped, and pecked - and they were so caught up in their actions that they were oblivious to my presence there, flying past me several times and letting me get pretty close to them. It struck me that they were wasting an enormous amount of precious energy on this process. Cold winters are hard on bluebirds, which generally stay put in our region for the year, and many of them die in the early spring because they are starving and weak and food resources have not yet picked back up. But here they were, willing to spend such long periods of time in the energy-sapping process of fighting.

This morning I had the thrilling opportunity to see two Northern flickers do their mating dance. (You can watch a quick video of this neat little dance here.) Another energy-intensive process, it went on for minutes and was followed by quite a bit of flying and chasing and chirping. Northern flickers are another year-round bird that can be exhausted and weak by this time of year, yet every year they summon up the energy for this elaborate mating process.

I often hear people talk about how “sweet” the sound of the birds is, how “happy” they sound when they sing or “cute” they look when they zip around our yards. I have used this language myself! When we hear birdsong, it makes us feel sweet and happy, and so we assume that those nice emotions must be shared by the pretty, energetic, brightly-colored birds around us.

But there is nothing sweet or happy about these springtime behaviors. These birds are in a fight for their lives and the right to claim the best territory, find the best mate(s), and raise the best brood. Those beautiful songs contain threats to competitors and lures to potential mates. Many of the males will lose out and be resigned to a life on the margins, trying to mate surreptitiously with an unattended female or move in on another male’s territory when he dies or is injured. The females will wear themselves out with raising brood after brood and helping to defend their territory against predators, other birds, and those marginal males. By the end of the nesting season, toward the middle to end of summer, all of the adults will be looking ragged and worn.

As I finished my walk this morning, I saw a male song sparrow, singing his heart out in an evergreen by a creek - the ideal spot for a song sparrow to claim as his territory. So tiny, singing his beautiful little melody - the words “cute” and “happy” definitely came to mind. Funny to think that, in his own mind, he was being “fierce” and “threatening” and asserting his “masculinity” - perhaps not too different from the young man who then drove by in his huge dually truck with double exhaust stacks.