Male Common Mergansers - Hangin' out with the guys.

A pair of male common mergansers on Dutch Lake.
Common mergansers breed in the northern parts of Canada and on or near the coastline all the way up to the Alaska Panhandle.  Mergansers are monogamous for the year, although they don't necessarily have the same mate in successive years.  So, why would there be a pair of males swimming and flying together on a lake south of their breeding range?

The answer is simple and is a way of looking into our own behaviours.  These boys have not bonded with a female yet and are on the way to do so.  However, as they progress towards that ultimate goal they enjoy the company of each other.  It makes me think of young men who huddle together before marriage or serious courting.  Both groups benefit from the social interaction, experience reduced stress by being in a group, and then there is a collective looking out for each other mindset. 

It turns out that many higher organisms have an innate tendency to be in a group.  The benefits are clear; protection, sharing resources, and socialization.  There are more eyes and ears around to watch for predators.  More individuals means that a desired resource is more likely to be found because a larger area can be searched in any given amount of time.  Then there is the social benefit of being with others that each of us has no doubt experienced.  If you don't agree with that, consider how isolation has affected you during the Covid-19 crisis.

One of the wonderful things about wildlife is what many of these organisms can teach us about ourselves.  I am not talking about anthropomorphising other creatures the way we do with cartoons like Over the Hedge or even Homeward Bound - The Incredible Journey.  Rather I am talking about looking at the internal motivations behind the behaviours.  Many of the things organisms do have developed out of evolutionary pressures; being social is one of those things.

Hangin' out with the guys (or girls, for that matter), is an internal desire which has been spawned in us throughout our history.  It is natural and good.  Isn't that why baseball was invented?

Thanks for reading.   www.ericspix.com   Eric Svendsen

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I found a black widow spider in a plant pot today

Image
The spider I found is a western black widow spider, one of three species of black widow that occur in North America.  The fact that this one has another red patch on the back of its abdomen above the spinnerettes tells us that it is an immature individual. The one thing that people know about black widow spiders is that they are extremely poisonous.  Their venom is something like 15x more toxic than that of a rattlesnake.  The saving grace is that there is very little venom injected from a black widow bite than what a rattlesnake can deliver.   The good news is that black widow bites seldom lead to death.  You are more likely to suffer nausea, muscle pain, and swelling around the bite.  Symptoms usually last only 12 hours or so.  Death may be a result in people with compromised immune systems or in the very young or the elderly.   In 2018, it was reported that there were 1015 cases of people bitten by black widows.  Of those, there ...
Read more

The passing of a generation

Image
Kathryn's mom and dad with our children, Josh and Leanne. A generation, for North America, tends to be between 20 and 30 years.  During that time a couple will give birth and raise children to see them repeat the pattern as they themselves have done.  Each generation has its own set of standards, values, and ideals based upon their experiences and culture, and some of that is passed down to their offspring.  What changes are the life experiences of the following generation and the new customs and ideals that are blended together as a couple becomes a family. Kathryn's mom passed away a few days ago, she was predeceased by her husband several years ago.  Both of them were the grandparents of my children, the mother and father of my wife, Kathryn.  It was my pleasure to know them and to love them as my own, for to me they were Mom and Dad.  And they were there to welcome my children into the world just as my children were with them in spirit when they left it...
Read more

Hang in there, things will get better.

Image
The Svendsen Family - Eric, Samuel, Leanne, Joshua (top row), Nora, Kathryn, Chanelle, Emma If I could go back, in my mind, to a day in my life when I was really down, it would be nice to be able to see into the future.  If could see things as they are today, with the many blessings that have been given to me, it would give me hope knowing that things wouldn't always be so discouraging.   The message here is we do not know what the future holds.  When things are bad, it is hard to raise your head out of the mire to see beyond the darkness.  There are no guarantees, of course, that things will be better, but I think it is true that fortunes ebb and flow as tides do.  The trick is to see beyond the low points and not be too haughty during the high ones.  I know that, at this moment, things are very good.  What the future holds is unknown, but low and high points are likely in the forecast.   This is why taking satisfaction from the moment ...
Read more