Everyone to his own opinion Tom! That is the beauty of free speech :)
I disagree with the copulation theory though simply because I believe
animals grieve just as much as us humans, why shouldn't they?
A long time ago while in Scotland, Blair Atholl, I saw a hunter on the Duke
of Atholl's land shoot and kill a heron because it was taking fish from a
pond that anglers were using, "how dare the birds take our fish" They would
say, herons are a protected species in Scotland and I quickly contacted the
RSPB to report the b****** who shot it, in the meantime, the female heron
stayed around the corpse for 3 days grieving at its loss, you see the heron=
s
mate for life, the female was often seen nudging the dead male as it lay
across the branch it fell on, hardly copulation in my mind!
I did get the Duke of Atholl fined too because the act was done on his land
by his keepers :)
Anyway, welcome to the group, you have the makings of some good recording
devices :)
Kind regards
Martyn :)
Martyn Stewart
Bird and Animal Sounds Digitally Recorded at:
http://www.naturesound.org
N47.65543 W121.98428
Redmond. Washington. USA
Make every Garden a wildlife Habitat!
When the animals come to us,
Asking for our help,
Will we know what they are saying?
When the plants speak to us
In their delicate, beautiful language,
Will we be able to answer them?
When the planet herself
Sings to us in our dreams,
Will we be able to wake ourselves, and act?
-Gary Lawless
-----Original Message-----
From:
Sent: Tuesday, April 27, 2004 5:10 PM
To: ;
Subject: RE: [Nature Recordists] Amazing pictures from Metafilter
You know, I almost hate to say it given the idealistic views of these
photos posted so far but it looks to me like rather than grieving, the live
swallow is attempting copulation with the dead/injured bird. Perhaps a more
informed ornithological authority could comment about this possibility.
And with that jaded comment probably making everyone wonder who it is they
are sharing the list with, let me briefly introduce myself:
I am a (very) rank amateur hobbyist nature recorder, most interested in
birdsong. I participate in this mostly in my own backyard in the northern
panhandle of Idaho. My equipment consists of a Telinga dish equipped with a
Sony tie-tac microphone and a Sony mini-disk recorder. I've been a lurker
on this list (digest mode) for quite a while and greatly enjoy the links to
recordings posted in message, and sometimes even understand and learn
something from the technical discussions on the list.
Last, I'd like to thank the list for the obvious open and friendly
atmosphere which is very welcoming to a newcomer.
Tom Besser
Moscow Idaho
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"Microphones are not ears,
Loudspeakers are not birds,
A listening room is not nature."
Klas Strandberg
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