Saturday, October 11, 2008
double-reading between the lines from
(Dept. of [what to do with] Romanticist Poetic Conceits)
Bruce Barcott, "Painting the Sky" * :
Some birds were made for poems. Keats had his
nightingale, Poe his raven. The European bee-eater's life
is more an epic novel . . . .
It's a good life, growing up as a European bee-eater
(Merops apiaster). The vast majority form
clans that raise young in the spring and summer
in a wide swath from Spain to Kazakhstan . . . .
Once the [European] birds arrive in Africa [after
winter migration], the social season kicks into
high gear. Male[s] stick with their own clan,
while females leave to add their genes to a distant
pool. Grass fires often function as mixers.
. . . Spanish-born males meet Italian-born
females, [the] Hungarian[-born] . . . meet Kazahks
and mates pair up for life. . . . Home is usually
a sandstone cliff or . . . riverbank . . . burrows.
Nesting season is time for family alliances and intrigue.
Members of the Meropidae family . . . are famously cooperative
breeders. In any colony there are apt to be numerous
nest helpers--sons or uncles who help feed their
father's or brother's chicks. The helpers benefit too:
Parents with helpers can provide more food for chicks
to continue the family line. The trick, of course,
is to recruit more helpers. . . . [Cornell University
researchers studying a related breed living in Kenya] found
that they often use strong-arm tactics. After [building]
the burrow, a male . . . typically engages in courtship
feeding--impressing his mate by bringing her a tasty
[tidbit]. [Researchers] watched parents butt into
their son's business, begging for the courtship treat
or barging in between the mated pair. If that didn't
work, a parent might block the entrance of the son's
[home], preventing the female from entering . . . .
After a while some sons succumbed to the pressure,
abandoning their own breeding efforts to become helpers
at their parents' nests.
European [birds] aren't quite as ruthless.
They are more likely to find helpers among males
whose own nests fail through natural causes.
Trickery and theft aren't uncommon, though.
. . . If a female leaves her burrow to feed,
another female may sneak in to lay eggs--a
tactic to fool the neighbor into raising the
stranger's brood. Similarly, if a male leaves
the nest unguarded, other males may seize the
opportunity to copulate with his mate. Other[s]
occasionally turn to robbery, harassing neighbors
who return with food until they drop [the food]
and the thief can fly away with the goods.
It's a short, spectacular life. . . . But what a
story: bee chases, hive raids, brush fires, nest intrigue
. . . .
(62-63)
* National Geographic (ngm. com), October, 2008.
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