Avian motherhood deserves recognition on this national holiday. Some breeding female birds get a few breaks, but most put in more than a hard day's work. Housekeeping. Bed making. Grocery shopping. Diaper changing. Protecting. They do it all.
Take hummingbirds, for example. Females define "single mom." He's around for 20 seconds or so to breed; then he's off. She builds the nest, incubates eggs, feeds nestlings, and, just as babies fledge the nest, she's building a second nest for a repeat effort. On early spring near-freezing nights, she's especially challenged. Obviously, she can't feed at night, and when she's incubating, she can't go into torpor (something like overnight hibernation) that lets other hummers save energy to survive the night. She'd lose the clutch. So she exerts necessary energy to maintain body temperature to keep eggs viable. And sometimes she loses her own life in the process.
Other species pairs — bluebirds, cardinals, wrens, chickadees — share nest site selection efforts. Male bluebirds escort females to potential cavities and wing-flutter to display possible choices. She checks the cavities. When the two finally enter a cavity together, the bond is sealed and nest building begins.
Male and female cardinals check sites together. Chickadees work together to clean out natural cavities, although she does most of the excavation. Blue jays generally work together, the female often arriving soaking wet in order to dampen and shape leaves into the perfect nest configuration.
With actual nest building, females do the heavy lifting. Sometimes males will bring nesting materials to her — like blue jays and cardinals — but she layers and builds. Even after a male wren builds several nests in his territory to woo a mate, the female may select none of them, choosing instead to build her own.
Male doves help females build by bringing nesting materials and passing the twigs to her for placement, as she shapes the nest around her body — all while he's standing on her back. Well, maybe "help" depends on your definition.
Generally, females put in the bulk of incubation hours, keeping eggs warm and safe, and later carrying off fecal sacs, a kind of ready-made diaper. But phalaropes, a kind of sandpiper, switch roles. The female is the more colorful of the pair, lays the eggs, and then departs, leaving the male to incubate, feed, and raise the brood to maturity. Meanwhile, she chooses another mate for a repeat. Not a bad plan for productivity. After all, either bird can incubate, feed, and fledge a brood; but only the female can lay eggs.
Maybe the title "most dedicated avian mom" goes to a large family of African birds called hornbills, named for their most prominent feature. They nest in tree cavities, fairly high up, well away from predators. But just to make sure all is safe, once they lay their usual four eggs, the females seal themselves into the cavity, using at first a little mud and then plastering the remaining opening with their own droppings. They leave a small slit at the top for the male to pass in food. I expect they're careful to choose a truly dedicated mate.
When the time for fledging draws near, she breaks out of the nest and helps feed the now ravenously hungry brood.
Ah, motherhood — and all it entails.
For more information about birds and bird habitat, see Sharon Sorenson's books How Birds Behave, Birds in the Yard Month by Month, and Planting Native to Attract Birds to Your Yard. Check her website at birdsintheyard.com, follow daily bird activity on Facebook at SharonSorensonBirdLady, or email her at chshsoren@gmail.com.
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May 10, 2020 at 06:07PM
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Bird moms work hard, too | For the Birds - Courier & Press
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