When we see two individuals of closely related species hanging round
together then we're probably right to think that they might try to breed. On
the other hand it may be that they're ''just good friends' and I don't see
why we can't grant that birds are intelligent enough to have friends, ie to
have individuals of the same, or another, species they prefer to associate with.
W.H.Hudson (a British ornithologist of the early 20th century, whose books,
even though they refer only to British and South American birds, are well
worth reading still) has a chapter in one of his books (sorry can't remember
which) about odd pairs of birds, and most of these cases were of birds so
dissimilar that they couldn't possible have tried to breed, eg a Eurasian
Curlew and a Redshank.
#############################################
John Leonard (Dr),
PO Box 243,
Woden, ACT 2606
'I thought of New York as a Hemlock forest that had
been logged too heavily....'
Murray Gell-Mann
http://www.spirit.net.au/~jleonard
#############################################
|
