For 16 years the same pair of Canada geese has been coming and nesting at our pond.  I can’t tell one goose from another, but they can.  Canada geese mate for life.  I know these are the same two geese that have been coming all this time because these two geese are very gentle.  They’ll stand and watch me until I get within a dozen feet of them before they move, and then swim away on the pond.  I like the fact that they’re so devoted to one another.  I’m sure that they stay together throughout the year.  If something should ever happen to one, I’m sure the other would be as lost and mournful as a human couple would be in like circumstances.

These two geese have names.  They are Amy and Shawn.  They appear back at our pond in late February of every year, and start nesting a month later.  When they first come back, they’re part of a larger group which numbered 17-19 this year.  If there was some way to know, I’m quite certain their other companions would prove to be their children, and their children’s mates.  Extending that idea throughout all goosedom, it becomes likely that each flock of geese that we see is probably a big, extended family, not just a random grouping of friends.

I like the family nature of geese, and their loyalty to one another.

Mourning doves also mate for life.  I like the way they help one another.  Both the male and the female help to build the nest, and both help to incubate the two eggs that the female lays.  They incubate and raise two broods per year.  He sits on the eggs during the day, and she incubates the eggs at night.  Isn’t that thoughtful of him?  The daylight hours are the time for activity, and the time to forage for food.  He allows his wife to use those choice hours while he sits.  He allows his wife to take her turn sitting at night when she’d have to be inactive and sit anyway.  He must have to scramble and work extra hard to find a meal for himself in the short time available for him to forage for food.

Male humans should take note of the male mourning dove’s thoughtfulness toward his mate.  Too many men are like Mallard drakes who mate with the hens and leave them to incubate the eggs and raise the young alone.

I don’t believe we ought to be hunting Canada geese and mourning doves, but maybe the Mallard drakes of the world deserve to be shot.

People hunt California quail, too.  They’re my very favorite bird.  I fed upwards of 122 of them last winter.  They flock together for protection in the winter.  Toward the end of February they split into smaller coveys, and then pair off for nesting season.  They like to be in groups so that someone can always be on guard against danger.  Quail are constantly in danger.  Their life span is short.  They hatch 12-14 babies at a time to ensure the perpetuation of their race.  They’re gentle, meek, social birds that watch out for one another’s welfare.

There are other birds that don’t care a whit about others’ welfare, or even about their own offspring.  Cowbirds are members of the blackbird family.  Often, when you look in a blackbird’s nest, you’ll see one egg that looks different from the rest.  That’s a cowbird egg.  Cowbirds never build a nest.  They never raise a baby.  They leave their eggs in the nests of up to 200 other species of birds.  Some birds will evict the foreign eggs, but most will hatch the eggs and raise the foster children with their own.  There are approximately 750 species of parasitic birds in the world, but cowbirds are the only parasitic birds in Oregon.

I read in the paper, and I hear from my neighbors, about parasitic humans who go about at night stripping copper wire from pivots and machinery so that they can sell the salvaged metal for their own profit.  They make hundreds of dollars from depredations that require thousands of dollars to repair.

Instead of hunting Canada geese, mourning doves, and quail; why don’t they open a season on cowbirds?  I suppose they could, but no one would want to hunt them.  They’re worthless all the way around.  They’re like some parasitic humans.