Project 365 - Day 29

On the Spokane river, which runs through the heart of downtown there are several species of birds - people feed them. While I'm not a huge supporter of feeding wildlife this presents to two joyful things for me.

1. The opportunity to photograph the birds up close and personal.

2. I know they aren't out in the areas the hunters are to shoot them from the sky.

So a little trivia for the day... =)

A lot of people don't know that 90% of bird species are monogamous...with that said there are several levels of monogamy:

(1) Sexual monogamy - mating exclusively with one individual for a given amount of time.
Lifetime monogamy - where the 2 birds pair up and remain together for every breeding season for the rest of their lives, in fact if one individual from the couple were to die or get killed, the partner may refuse to mate for many breeding seasons, even for life (e.g., White Albatross, certain parrots, Canadian Geese).
Serial monogamy where a bird can be monogamous for one breeding season with a partner and then in the next breeding season be monogamous with a different partner. So that each breeding season the bird is monogamous but the partners are different (such as pigeons).

(2) Social monogamy is when a pair mates, has offspring, and both share parental investment (raise the kids) but still have outside flings - or "extra-pair copulations" (e.g., pigeons).

(3) Genetic monogamy is when DNA tests can confirm that a female's offspring matches up with the DNA of only one father, although the couple may not be physically together.