Love Is On The Wing Again

Batten down the hatches.
Valentine's Day is tomorrow. It's the day candy stores get rid of all their stale chocolates, florists bundle together everything with petals and charge a fortune
for them, postmen bend double under their load of cards, ecard sites get busy, and local newspapers personal columns fill up with really personal items like: "I Love You Mary - from Your Own Hotsy Totsy Oochie Coochie Man."

Do I sound cynical?
Ho. Envious, more like. Because there really is nothing as charming as a heartfelt Valentine's Card. A funny one, or one with frills, and especially ones that are homemade, with crayons. And because we Romance Writer's just love True Romance.

But I must tell you that I've found human romances to be sometime things. Even the best of them. I was married for many many years and would still be if Fate had been kinder, but there were nevertheless
times, even so, and sometimes even on Valentine's Day, when the mood was NOT loveable. That's only human. If you're looking for real romance, you have to observe the animal kingdom.

Dogs are loyal masters of love, for other animals and humans. Cats too, if you're not watching. Male and female. Maybe they've learned that from having lived so closely with us for so long.

But as for wild symbols of virility?
HA!
The mighty stag is a true Alpha male, more interested in fighting with other males than cuddling with females, except when hormones are upon them.

Stallions too.
Lions and tigers and bears, oh my?
Lions are polygamists. Tigers are loners. And bears are seldom seen smooching.

When it comes to loving relationships, Reptiles aren't even in the running. Leave us not talk about insects.

And fish, (except for the seahorse, where the males incubate the young. Still,I don't know how affectionate they are with seamares) are interested in spawling, which means only needing to have a female in the general vicinity.  Whales and porpoises do neck, I've seen it. But they are, after all, mammals.

Geese are monogamists, and show true affection, as do swans.

In fact, birds are the truest symbols of love. They put us mammals to shame.

Legend says that wild birds choose their mates by Valentine's Day. Around here, they do! I feed them, and I've seen it. The Cardinals were drab until last week. Then the males grew red as flames, and the females bloomed with lipstick red beaks, and they did, indeed, pair off. Ten of them: two by two, times five. The goldfinches no longer looked like sparrows, the males grew bright yellow tummies. All the birds showed their genders and made their choices. I expect a lot of cheeping in the spring.

Bird love is nothing to scoff at. The males cooperate. They dress up and court females. They wear themselves to tatters building nests and bringing food for ther chicks. Even the dumbest: the lumbering Mourning Doves in their flimsy, silly nests, watch their nestlings by turns, as though timing themselves by a clock. Bird love is constant. I don't know if they choose the same mates year after year, but once they've chosen, they are loyal, affectionate, and loving.

Which animal's loving behavior would you rather have? A magnificent stallion's? Or a cocker spaniel's?
An MGM lion roaring at you? Or a pussycat purring?

And yet when we scorn men we call them "dogs" and "hounds" and "tomcats"

Why do we call handsome exciting males: "Regency Bucks," "Stallions" and "Tigers"?

Our standards of masculinity could use a dust off, I think. On Valentine's Day we could do worse than watch the birdies.

What do you think?

Photo cred: Original bird cards by Pepperina Press.

Comments

[Maggie Robinson]

Somehow, saying my husband is as hot as a nuthatch just doesn't do it! As much as I am a romantic, I think that monogamy is not man's (or woman's) natural state. But I'm still on my starter husband after several decades. :)

[Joan Woods]

I can't say my husband is as hot as a nuthatch either. Even though he is not romantic I am still with him after 54 years.

[Laura Vivanco]

Can I lower the tone by pointing out that cormorants are also known as shags? I don't believe that "The common cormorant (or shag) / Lays eggs inside a paper bag" http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/1111.html but I also don't know if they're very romantic birds.

[Edith]

Well, Maggie and Joan, part of the problem, I admit, is that birds have some strange names.
"Hot as a titmouse," or "as a flycatcher" doesn't have that romantic tone, after all. Neither does "He looked magnificent, like a owl in heat," ring any bells.

But if they had hot names....

That why I love that Cormorants are known as shags, Laura. That should help birdie hotness reputations!

[maryjoputney]

Edith, how delightful! I have cardinals here, but obviously haven't been observing them as carefully. The guy cardinals have been looking pretty red, though.

I'll admit that "hot as a nuthatch" doesn't quite do it, but how about "Hot as a hawk?" Powerful as an eagle? Potbellied like a penguin? Ooops, forget that last even if it is more accurate. :)

Mary Jo

[keri]

I remember an auntie's shocked exclamation once about a man being "naked as a jaybird!" I don't know what, if anything, that said about his virility. Are jaybirds more manly than goldfinches? I know I'd strongly suspect a jackdaw of being something of a rake.

[talpianna]

Edith, the locus classicus for the birds' choosing their mates on Valentine's Day is Chaucer's PARLIAMENT OF FOWLES. Here's a link to a translation:

http://tinyurl.com/27u992

For the real lowdown on love among the birds and bees, see DR. TATIANA'S SEX ADVICE TO ALL CREATION: THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO THE EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY OF SEX. In this entertaining and informative book, evolutionary biologist Olivia Judson presents "letters" from sexually frustrated animals, birds, and insects who ask "Dr. Tatiana" to explain some sexual oddity. For example, "Don't Wanna Be Butch in Botswana" writes, "I'm a spotted hyena, a girl. The only trouble is, I've got a large phallus. I can't help feeling that this is unladylike. What's wrong with me?"

"Like, what's the deal? I'm a sleek young California mouse and am so in heat."

"Dear Dr. Tatiana:
I'm an Australian redback spider, and I'm a failure. I said to my darling, 'Take, eat, this is my body,' and I vaulted into her jaws. But she spat me out and told me to get lost. Why did she spurn the ultimate sacrifice?
-- Wretched in the Wilderness"

"Dear Dr. Tatiana,
I’m a European praying mantis, and I’ve noticed I enjoy sex more if I bite my lovers’ heads off first. Somehow they then seem less inhibited, more urgent—it’s fabulous. Do you find this too? -- I Like ’Em Headless in Lisbon

Some of my best friends are man-eaters, but between you and me, cannibalism isn’t my bag. I can see why you like it, though. Males of your species are boring lovers. Beheading them works wonders: whereas a headless chicken rushes wildly about, a headless mantis thrashes in a sexual frenzy. Why can’t he be that way when he’s whole?"

"In the final chapter 'Dr Tatiana' discusses her 'TV show' and how there was recently nearly a riot because of a guest - the bdelloid rotifer - whose ancestors seem to have abolished males some 85 million years ago. This statement caused mayhem in the studio and the pocket mouse nearly fainted - 'a typical mammalian reaction to the horror of cloning'!!

" From the Asian stick insect who stretches one copulation out for months at a time, to the fruit fly only five percent as long as one of his own sperm, to the slime mold with its 500 sexes, 13 of which have to get together to make a little baby slime mold, Dr. Tatiana covers the beat and covers the bases."

[Edith]

Wow! The erudition of the folks who drop by is amazing! The things you learn reading the things clever people post here is astonishing.
That book sounds like great fun,Talpianna. I must buy a copy and leave it out in the garden for the edification of the birds and the bees!

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY to all you bird and bee, cat and dog - and oh, yes, people lovers.

[Susie]

Hot as a nuthatch = hilarious. Also, I loved the Dr. Tatiana was a brillaint joke, and was amazed to Google it and find it was real! Holy Moley hot stuff!

[Susie]

Hot as a nuthatch = hilarious. Also, I loved the Dr. Tatiana stuff and throught it was a brilliant joke... so I was amazed to Google it and find it was real! Holy Moley hot stuff tal!

[Susie]

So nice I posted twice... now thrice. Yikes! Well, my second post has fewer spelin' errareees.

[Patricia Rice]

Love the birdie Valentines! Our cardinals seem to stay quite red all winter, but mating behavior definitely becomes more noticeable in spring. I love watching the male feeding the female--now that's what real devotion is about. "G" I wanta get fed.

But my darling is far more romantic than I am and provides gorgeous roses along with the meal. (Of course, he's also practical, and acquires the roses by donating money to his favorite public radio station!)

[talpianna]

Olivia Judson's book is quite real; she is a respected evolutionary biologist with an Oxford degree. And the letters are hilarious, but the scientific background is quite solid, and it makes a genuine point about how and why sexual biology has evolved as it has.

Edith, read the book yourself before you put it out for the birds and the bees; it's really great.

[talpianna]

Patricia--

As Dr. Tatiana explains, the male of many spider species brings the female a gift of food wrapped in layers of webbing in the hopes that he can get his rocks off before she finishes unwrapping and eating it and decides to eat HIM!

Have you counted your mate's limbs lately?