Valentine lore: Are Animals Romantic?

Albatross Pair, painted by Robert E Fuller. More info and to buy

As Valentine’s Day approaches I have been thinking about whether animals experience the same emotions that we do. And, in particular, whether they feel love in the same way?

As someone who has spent my life observing animals and birds in the wild, I believe they do, although obviously they are not as intelligent. I think we share all the same emotions - grief, lust, fear and love -and all the subtle feelings in between. This complex range of emotions is a necessary part of survival.

Some species, for instance, form life-long bonds to raise their young. Their offspring depend on their parents to work together as a pair to defend and feed them. But it’s not all about finding a mate and a territory.  It is well known that elephants, for instance, experience grief and will mourn the loss of one of their herd by visiting their remains in ‘elephant graveyards’ for some years afterwards, stroking the bleached bones of the dead with their trunks in mournful vigil.

Following in Footsteps, limited edition print by Robert E Fuller. More info & to buy 

The link between humans and chimpanzees has been well documented.  Comparisons of our genetic blueprints show that we share 96% of our DNA sequence with these apes. I have been trekking with chimps in Tanzania and it really is amazing to see how similar their actions are to ours.

Closer to home, I’ve seen almost the same range of emotions as humans experience expressed by British wildlife.

Chimp of Mahale, by wildlife artist Robert E Fuller. More info and to buy.

The animal kingdom spends a great deal of energy and effort in courtship and territorial defense.  It is everywhere from bird song, to the roar of a stag or the colourful and elegant plumage of a kingfisher.

For evidence of subtler emotional bonding, you only have to watch a clan of badgers on a warm summer’s evening grooming one another whilst their cubs play about them. Their social structures are quite complex and depend on the need to form a cohesive group in order to defend their territory from rival clans. So they spend a lot of time grooming and scent marking each other as a way of reaffirming their connections. Literally, its ‘you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours’.

Badger Bond, taken from a painting by Robert E Fuller

I spent a week watching a fox raise her five cubs and witnessed envy and smugness too. The vixen quite clearly had a favourite cub, a female, which she groomed more and spent more time with than the others, and this little cub had grown proud and spoiled as a result. One day I watched this favourite cub goad and tease a larger male sibling with a pigeon feather which she held in her mouth. The larger male took chase but he couldn’t quite match her agility and, disgruntled at the fact that he was unable to take her prized feather, slunk off sulkily. The little cub gleefully took up her position next to her mother and there’s little doubt she was gloating.

Fox and cubs painted by Robert E Fuller.

And as for love, it’s hard to ignore the vast array of complex courtship rites practised by birds.

Great crested grebes have the most elaborate courtship dance of all Britain’s birds. It involves carefully choreographed displays of head shaking, diving, ritualised preening, some serious feather fluffing and a spectacular ‘reed dance’ finale.

Grebes courting, by Robert E Fuller.

You can see these mating dances right now on lakes and ponds and they are fascinating to watch because, unusually, the females take almost as active a role as the males.
 I have been feeding a pair of tawny owls from my garden bird table for some years now and I regularly watch them out of my kitchen window. One night last month I turned my security light on and saw the pair on the garden fence sitting so close to each other they were touching. The male began to lightly preen the female’s facial disc and I could hear her ‘churring’ with pleasure as she moved her face around to make sure he preened just the right spot.

These birds don’t actually start to lay eggs until March so it was early for pre-nesting courtship. Instead these two were enjoying the simple pleasure of physical contact. In the spring and summer if I go anywhere near this pair’s nest the male swoops down and attacks me. Twice he has actually knocked a chain saw helmet off my head and once his claws punctured my back in eight places!

This tawny owl clearly has fiercely strong feelings of protection towards his chicks and I’ve learned now to stay well clear. And these little ‘mini-dramas’ are not limited to courtship rituals, they also involve the more subtle twists of jealousy and betrayal.

Take for instance the day I watched an unfaithful curlew skulk away after his mate caught him playing away from home. I was in Teesdale at the time watching a black grouse lek, itself an intricate and complex mating dance, when I spotted a female curlew on her nest. There was something about her restless behaviour that caught my eye. It was as though she just couldn’t concentrate on the job of incubating her eggs.

Unfaithful male curlew is challenged by both females, photograph by Robert E Fuller. 

Then I noticed that she was watching her mate closely. She seemed so agitated that she would often leave her eggs unattended and fly over to join him where he was feeding. Then one morning, after several days of this unusual behaviour, I realised what all the fuss was about. I spotted the male near my hide feeding with another female. Curlew males supposed to stand guard whilst their mates sit on their eggs but he was clearly flirting.

As I watched him, he began to posture and show off his size to the new female. His mate clearly wasn’t going to stand for this and she left her nest and flew across to join them. At this point he began to look very uncomfortable and started to strut around picking up moss and grass with his long curved beak and flicking it up into the air in a futile attempt to distract the two females. In the end, like the two wronged heroines that they were, the girls rounded on him and he quickly scarpered leaving them to battle it out amongst themselves.

Curlew in Wildflowers, painting by Robert E Fuller

All these little observations make me think that if we have feelings why can’t animals and birds have them too? I don’t accept the argument this is ‘anthropomorphism’ - the act of people giving animals human qualities. I just think animals and birds need a lot more credit than they get.