Love Is In the Air, and Everywhere

LOVE IS IN THE AIR – AND EVERYWHERE !
March 22 & March 24

Anyone looking for some adult entertainment need go no further than their own backyard. Raise your binoculars and you are almost guaranteed a scene right from the Young and the Restless! And if you have been watching the Young and the Restless this past week, you already know that’s a tough act to follow!
This is the time of the year when birds provide the best entertainment, and they are not the least bit bashful of getting it on right in front of you. Red-winged blackbirds which arrived in the Quinte area last Friday, are notorious for extra- marital flings. Flying through the air together with their red epaulets raised, the male chases the female. Without batting an eyelash he grabs her rump, and both go crashing to the ground, hopefully uninjured, all in the name of love. However, she needn’t feel singled out by this amorous male. He may have up to 15 other females in his territory, and he repeats the same ceremony with each and every one of them.
The male northern harriers coursing to an from over the meadows behind our house also enjoy having more than one wife. Likewise the meadowlark who joins them in happy song in among the emerging sprigs of alfalfa. This behaviour known as polygamy occurs wherever and whenever there is an abundant food supply, and the male is not required to help the female with household chores.
But it can go the other way too, when a female may take on multiple husbands. A female spotted sandpiper may have up to four husbands, and explains the reason why there always seemed to be more than the conventional couple whenever they nested in our vegetable garden on the farm many years ago. This unusual behaviour is referred to as polyandry. And when things get really downright complicated, and both the female and the male have multiple spouses, it becomes polygynandry. It’s a darn good thing they know nothing about scruples.
But even properly married couples, who normally don’t condone this kind of behaviour, occasionally have wandering eyes. Those innocent, chirpy little tree swallows, happily nesting in our backyard nesting boxes every summer, often commit adultery. Some woodpeckers, even our lovable Baltimore orioles sipping nectar from our hummingbird feeders, have extra-marital flings now and then.
Some males, no names mentioned, just entice a female for sex, then leave to find another female with whom to mate. The jilted female builds the nest, incubates the eggs, and raises the chicks by herself. For the most part, however, most males work with their wives to ensure survival of the greatest number of chicks.
And what do we call birds who do behave in a proper manner, and remain together, at least, for the breeding season? It’s called monogamy. If birds could understand these assigned words, they would catch on that the term almost rhymes with monotony!
During the mating season, birds often do strange things. Last spring, there was one pair of wild turkeys looking for that perfect patch of dead leaves under a beech somewhere to fashion out a nest and lay their clutch of a dozen or more eggs. We’re not sure if that perfect place should have been on Chatham Street in Belleville, but that’s where this particular pair was seen searching and wandering around. In past years, there have been similar stories of ring-necked pheasants cruising the streets of town, gazing across the lawns of residents and peeking through picket fences. Last year, in Croydon, there was a robin banging itself senseless against the window of one home because he thought his reflection was a rival bird out to claim its territory. The female? She left her husband long ago.
But it’s not only birds that get turned on when the weather warms. Several years ago, I was conducting an aquatic study with a noisy Grade 4 class at a pond in a conservation area near Picton. While kids splashed in the water all around, a tiny toad with its throat fully expanded, continued its long wavering trill in search of a female. So wrapped up was it in performing its nuptials, that I was able to bend down and get a perfect close-up photo with my macro lens. That photo is on my website now at www.naturestuff.net. You will find it by clicking “Opportunities” from the home page, then clicking the Community Wildlife Monitoring Program button.