SNN (ScrollingNetworkNews) ✿ ✿ Our Mel and Sydney returned to their nesting box with plenty of bonding occurring..but after 2.5 months of Sydney in the box from Dec 2013 to mid Feb 2014, the lack of prey gifts from Mel ( perhaps due to the severe and historic drought underway in California)and they have forgone the nesting process this year as many other raptors ✿ Compared to other owls of similar size, the Barn Owl has a much higher metabolic rate, requiring relatively more food. Pound for pound, Barn Owls consume more rodents – often regarded as pests by humans – than possibly any other creature. ✿ We remind viewers that sometimes owlets may not survive - the parents will dispose of things in "The Owl Way" -viewer discretion is advised, this is nature and the "Owl way". ✿ ~ ✿ “Animals, like us, are living souls. They are not things. They are not objects. Neither are they human. Yet they mourn. They love. They dance. They suffer. They know the peaks and chasms of being.” ― Gary Kowalski, The Souls of Animals ✿ Each species is a masterpiece, a creation assembled with extreme care and genius." ~ E.O. Wilson

Thursday, April 5, 2012

BBC News about Monogamous


Monogamous animals partner up with a single mate, sometimes for the duration of a breeding season and less commonly over multiple seasons and years. Monogamy has particular advantages, and is often the chosen strategy where young are more vulnerable and require both parents for protection and feeding.

In serial monogamy, having different partners each season helps maintain genetic diversity. First, they may actually engage in serial monogamy, bonding with a mate for one mating season, but choosing a different mate in a subsequent season. Second, many seemingly monogamous pairings are often subject to infidelities, or extrapair copulations.

While over 90% of bird species appear to be monogamous, genetic studies show that in most populations at least a few offspring in each generation result from matings with partners other than a pair member.
http://www.animalbehavioronline.com/monogamy.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/adaptations/Monogamous_pairing_in_animals