Mating Matters…
Ever since Soham started birding seriously, he gets very passionate when he speaks about birds and their behaviours. His face gets all lighted up when he talks about them! And one thing he just can’t stop himself from marvelling about is this distinct and very fascinating quality of birds, particularly males — their elaborate mating rituals!
Every bird has his own unique way of wooing his mate. Building nests, housekeeping/ cleaning the place, grooming themselves/ changing colours to look more attractive, dancing, getting food, tickling, singing, getting colourful gifts etc., They actually put in days and months and sometimes years of effort in trying to woo their mates. No they don’t just get to mate because their parents set them up or because they just show up and pounce on the female bird. Despite all the persistent efforts, sometimes a few unlucky males fail to impress the females and end up living a life of celibacy and die :( No they don’t just harass the female or worse, rape them. Gentlemen don’t do such things you see!
Besides that point, I sometimes get weirded out by the way Soham just starts off anywhere and with anyone and goes into these long monologues about what any particular male bird does for mating! Or depending on which season it is, which birds would be mating etc., He also gets very excited whenever he spots any birds/ insects mating and screams “Amma look at those birds/ insects they are mating!”🤦♀️ The other day during an online class his teacher was teaching about teamwork and showed them a video about the weaver bird building and nest and apparently mentioned that all the birds work together (basically trying to teach teamwork) to build the nest. He was getting extremely restless and I was kind of suspecting he would start off with his description about mating rituals again but thankfully he didn’t during the class. After the class he stormed into my room and with an exasperated expression said “Amma, Baya weaver male builds a nest to attract his mate. If the female is impressed, she will come to him and after mating they complete the remaining part of the nest. Where is team work in this? Teacher is teaching all wrong things.” And I didn’t know how to respond! Should I have said that he must have told his teacher about that? Well… The Indian mother in me is not yet prepared for that :) By the way considering it is monsoon season now, he is excited that Baya weaver males would have started building their nests to impress their prospective mates and he is desperately looking forward to catching up with some of them this year again :)
Anyway whatever he understands mating is, I am glad he knows that a male has to put in effort to impress a female and not behave like he is entitled to mate with her just because he wants to. I am hoping he wouldn’t be scandalised when he learns about mating in humans! Disappointed? definitely, yes he will be when he learns about all the crimes associated with it!
P.S. Human males please take a lesson or two from birds. SERIOUSLY. Do watch “Dancing with the birds” on Netflix. You could also buy and read the book “Bird Business” by Rohan Chakravarty. With some lovely illustrations and notes about 100 most common birds in India, it is definitely a must have :)
P.P.S. Sharing cartoons about the courtship dance of Western Parotia and mating rituals of Baya Weavers by Rohan Chakravarty (http://www.greenhumour.com)
