Emotions and Anthropomorphizing

Earlier posts on this topic may be found under Behavior

One of four bluebird babies is more aloof than the others though he appears healthy. He and his siblings lost their mother two weeks ago. Do Baby Bluebirds Grieve?

David (Old Chatham)

Hi David,

No matter how much we try to think like a Bluebird, I think that will remain one of the mysteries we'll never know the answer to, in this lifetime anyway.

Rob Barron
Warrenton, Virginia

David T.
I do not believe that baby Bluebirds 'grieve."
On the other hand, I think that your question is a fascinating one, a question that I've been speculating about for years. What goes on in the heads of all these birds and animals as they go about their largely mysterious ways? We have a semi-domesticated Chipmunk who has learned to come into our room in the morning and take seeds from a little dessert dish placed on our bed between us. His brain is about the size of a grape, and yet he is able to remember simple procedures and to trust us completely not to hsrm him. One of his tiny offspring died in the trash barrel yesterday and we wondered if he 'grieved,' or even if he knew it. I doubt it.
But though he trusts us, the merest glimpse of a crow flying over the treetops sends him scurrying for safety. Yet minutes later he is back with us having his back and ears scratched while he stuffs seeds into his pouches.
Likewise the crow, which is one of the wariest of creatures, sits on the shoulder of the road pecking at road-kill while hundreds of cars roar by him only inches away. It makes no sense to me, but it probably does to him.

Bruce Burdett SW NH

Bruce, I found the question fascinating also. I would like for David to expound upon his description of the bird acting "more aloof" than the others.

I do know that our Golden Retriever seemed to be so sad when our grandson would leave to go back to college. If he left the truck door open loading his things, he would find her on the back seat ready to go with him. After he left, she would stand in the yard looking down the road for ever so long, looking sad.

I don't know if the bird's brain has that capacity or not. We do know that 70% of bluebirds do not make it the first year of their lives. If they mourned over every single one of them, they would spend a lot of time mourning. I would think their survival is utmost on their brains.

There's three of the five that fledged in the backyard nestbox that show up regularly. So, apparently two have not survived since fledging so far.

Evelyn

We also have to keep in mind that we often personify animals with terms of feelings applicable only to humans. If we assign a feeling to an animal, we have to keep in mind we are doing just that.

Grieving to a bluebird may not be what grieving is to us. True, a bluebird may sense or know the absence of one of its parents, but how it "thinks" or "feels about that, we'll never know. Instead, we study its patterns and behaviors and gauge that this animal may react this or that way should this or that happen, and "scientifically" describe the behavior and perhaps try to relate to it with the terms we have that best describe it (i.e., "appears to be a mourning phase") but in no means should we think of grievance or mourning in animals to have the same connotation it does for humans.

But then one thinks of chimpanzees, they do appear to experience a sense of mourning when a close family member is killed, so much that they die themselves from starvation and "grief". Yet, is this really "grief" as we see it? We may think so because they react in very similar ways as humans do, but we still will never really know. A bluebird or any bird for that matter is more far removed from the primate family and is more difficult to "relate" to...

And of course, we often feel we can sense what our pets are feeling. But do we really? That's a whole other topic!

So yes, the bluebird possibly shows signs of awareness that a parent is gone. Is it grief? Who knows. We often cannot read the minds of our own spouses, yet they can tell us. Birds cannot. Ah, what I would give to have a day in the mind of an animal! ;-)

Jill
(Wildlife toxicologist)
Westminster, CO

From: Donna [mailto:spraydm"at"earthlink.net]
Sent: Sunday, June 18, 2006 1:33 PM
Subject: Re: Do Baby Bluebirds Grieve?

That IS a thought-provoking question. After watching the documentary "Why Dogs Smile and Chimpanzees Cry", I have no doubt non-human mammals have feelings like we do:

========================
Are animals closer to humans on an emotional level than generally has been believed? The many scientists, researchers, wildlife photographers, and other animal experts interviewed in this Discovery Channel video answer with a resounding yes. They make their case in this 93-minute documentary, narrated by actress Sigourney Weaver, with stories of despondent dogs, grieving chimps, and lab rats who laugh when tickled. The first half focuses on happy bonds between mother and child, siblings, and animals and humans. The second half delves into the darker subjects of sadness and grief, offering astounding assertions such as elephants secrete a tearlike substance when upset and search dogs finding only corpses in the Oklahoma City bombing case needed treatment for depression. While the focus is on mammals, mollusks get some air time in the form of octopuses that appear to change color according to their situation. Backing up observations with brain imaging and genetic testing, the scientists--and this film--make a compelling view for any animal lover. --Kimberly Heinrichs
========================

As for birds, I remember the way the neighboring bluebirds recently came to help "our" pair when the black rat snake was trying to climb the pole holding their house. What motivates that impulse to help a fellow bird in dire straits? Bird documentaries show how some birds will kill one or more of their young and hatchlings will push a sibling out of the nest to it's death, which implies a lack of feelings. And yet humans behaved the same during the plague years. I recently saw a documentary about it. Since there were many years of drought around the same time, many of those who were not sick would kill off some of their young children just to be able to feed themselves and the few strongest.

In the movie "Winged Migration" I remember a scene where a small injured bird was on the sand, watching crabs approach for the kill. Was that fear I saw in the bird as it tried to limp away from them?

I personally don't think we are all that different from the animal kingdom. When we are surviving comfortably, we can afford to be indulgent and sentimental. What happens with humans when the structures that support our civilization fail can be shocking. New Orleans turned into a ruthless, lawless mess during the immediate aftermath of Katrina, and I can only imagine what a long-term breakdown would look like.

Yes, that's an interesting question.

Donna

Humans share 99% of our genes with chimpanzees and about 97% with gorillas. We share some DNA with everything from worms and pigs to single celled algae.

The preeminent evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in his books the Selfish Gene, River Out of Eden and others makes a convincing case that all life forms' behavior is driven by the simple drive to pass on our genes. He makes a convincing case that the "altruism" exhibited by "higher" life forms all has an evolutionary drive eg. human grandparents are too old to reproduce but since their grandchildren have half their DNA, taking care of your grandkids passes on your genes. Buy it or not, it's interesting food for thought.

It's easy to be anthropomorphic with animals we love and hate; we love to ascribe negative human characteristics to snakes, wolves, killer whales and house sparrows, but our smart cute Bluebirds, dogs and dolphins must be more like us. Personally, I like Bluebirds the way they are and the less human the better. We're supposedly the highest life form and we're killing the planet we depend on for life through our short sighted greed. Bluebirds will abandon their babies if that's what they have to do to survive and live to raise another clutch when conditions are better. Male lions will kill the babies of another male to make the female come into estrus again and have babies carrying his genes.

Evolution isn't nice, it just is. I hope Bluebirds don't have the burden of human emotions such as grief. Their life is hard enough as it is.

I like to think my dogs love me and miss me, but it's probably more realistic to believe they miss the big dog who walks on his hind legs and can scratch that place on their but in front of their tail they can't reach and always has deer meat and bones to chew on, and has this really comfortable queen sized bed and Natuzzi leather couches to rest on. Plus, I'm the only dog who makes the door magically open and close 200 times a day.

It's a fascinating topic.

Rob Barron
Warrenton, Virginia

I don't want to add too much to this, but I have a friend who raises parrots. He has a beautiful aviary that is kept immaculate and seems to be a heaven for birds. When I said they must be happy indeed, he said " they hate me. " Why? He then said it was because he takes their eggs/hatchlings to raise himself. They are too valuable to leave to Mom and Dad to raise. He said they grieve for months. I don't know how he can prove it, but I live with a parrot who exhibits all the same emotions that I do. She can say the same thing, but put different emphasis on it. For instance, "momma" real sweetly when she calls my wife, if no response and she knows Momma is home, she raises her voice a notch. If it requires three calls, she screams the word MOMMA !! And she remembers people she has not seen in several years.
She also laughs, appropriately, when she hears of sees something she believes is funny. I have learned more about birds from her than any book.

Phil Berry
Gulf Breeze, Florida

You asked what was meant by "more aloof." This one fledging does not like to feed with the other three siblings at the mealworm feeder. He (if he is a he) stays apart from the others during the day when they are just hanging out on the branches around the yard. He also shows more "aggressiveness" and "independence." He is more stubborn about yielding his perch to the tree swallows and tries to nip back at them. He was the first to feed himself etc.

Does this add to the picture?

I just wonder how the sudden absence of a mother during this critical period might affect the bluebirds. Does it possibility change their personality? Does it affect their survival rates?

Tough questions I know, but I'm just a curious person by nature and
enjoy thinking about things like this.

I had a parrot for 35 years and he would some times name all my pets
I had in 35 years and what the pet was. I miss that bird very much.
I would get a new one but it would outlive me.

Maynard Sumner
Flint, MI

From: plkldf"at"comcast.net [mailto:plkldf"at"comcast.net]
Sent: Monday, June 19, 2006 6:35 AM
Subject: re: Re: Do Baby Bluebirds Grieve?

I get the Digest. That can be good and bad, because it means my reading (and replies) is a day behind, but it also means I look at a day's worth of correspondence.

Thanks for clearing up that evolution question!

Two folks said they'd like to know what it feels like to be an animal. Well, you don't have to fantasize that you're an animal: you *are* an animal. If you live on Earth, and you're not a plant and you're not a virus, you're an animal. If biologists have added some other microscopic form of life as a separate category, you're not that either, okay?

You *are* an animal: you're a mammal, and mammals are animals.

As far as anthorpomorphism is concerned, my own feeling is that the real misconception related to anthropmorphism is that humans are sacred and that we feel things that other animals don't feel. We think that our emotions have a special significance while other animals' apparent emotions are illusionary, since they can't possibly have them. It's just as primitive and comes from exactly the same source as the opposition to Galileo when he said that Earth revolves around the Sun.

got to go,
Paul in Baltimore

PS: there is, by the way, a school of thought that holds that the hippocampus is the seat of emotion in animals, and I have been told that birds do not have hippocampi, leading one to conclude that birds don't have emotions in the way we understand them. I'm not sure I buy that, for what it's worth....

Just have to put in my 2 cents, which is about all it's worth. This has been a facinating run of responses and I think its great that people are being respectful of all opinions. We do get attached to these little creatures and naturally transfer our human feelings into interpreting their behaviors.
When my male disappeared this year, I couldn't help but think Mom was sad - they were such a tight little couple for at least two years in my yard, obviously she recognized his absence but is she capable of being sad - who knows? These bluebirds, especially show behaviors, to me, that have to signify some "feelings" - When the male flew to the feeder first, he always waited until Mom ate first before he took his turn. When she was laying an egg, he stayed in a nearby tree and waited for her.
After I stopped monitoring the hatchlings on day 10, Mom's behavior was very atypical on day 12 - agitated, hopping around and chirping on her favorite branch. I suspected she was trying to communicate that something was wrong inside the house. In fact, I found later that 2 nestlings died, probably on day 12.
Since she and her babes left the yard about 10 days after fledging, I have only seen her once - she was alone and stopped on her 2 favorite perches for just a few minutes before leaving with out accepting my quickly offered mealworms. I told my husband she looked "sad" - of course, he humored me.
However, in checking my journal, this would have been the same day last year that she laid the first egg of her second brood. Was she sad or did she just come back because she recognized that something was not right - her instincts are telling her she should be incubating but she can't. Or was it just coincidence? I think not.
It's a fine line between feelings and instinct, I do believe. I do not think we humans are so superior - we can learn much from these beautiful "fellow animals" - cooperation, nurturing our young, protecting each other, and staying strong in times of crisis. Bev in Atlanta

I just love reading everybodies take on this..... GREAT TOPIC!!!

yanno, science can explain for our bodies, and how they work, etc....
but have they ever really come up with an explanation for EMOTIONS??
I don't think they have and yet every one of us KNOWS they DO exist....
Kinda makes an argument for a higher power, don't it???

My bluebirds come every year in late October/Early november, and perch on my
back deck...
ALL OF THEM.....
I have 12-15 of them there.... Young and old.... It's almost like a
gathering....
and like they are gathering to say 'GOODBYE"
They know I see them and they see me....
They can't cry (at least visually like we do) but I do.....
And I think they know that I LOVE THEM.

Joy in Cedar Springs, Michigan

Keith Kridler Mt. Pleasant, Texas

I think the question in the subject line is misleading.

I think the question should be "Do Bluebirds display emotions in their everyday lives?"

Observe a pair of bluebirds in the spring when they find a suitable nestbox and you can observe them displaying pure joy.

Observe a bluebird being chased by a Logger Head Shrike or a Sharp Shinned Hawk and you will see them show fear.

When a snake appears or another ground based predator is near their young and or nest and they show agitation or express a different vocabulary that will attract many different species to come to their aid and I believe it is the "emotion" or urgency in their voice or expressed in their actions that trigger other bird species to react and come help as each older bird knows the same fear and worry that these bluebirds are now being subjected to.

Sadness? Listen to the calls of bluebirds in the fall and winter as they prepare to migrate and compare it to the Song of Hope that male bluebirds belt out from their territory in the early spring.

I personally do not think we need to question why or if bluebirds show emotions or if they have the same parts to a brain as we humans do.
Bluebirds react to a harsh if not brutal existence by instinct or a learning process so that they continue to play a small part in a very complex planet year after year for untold generations.

The question more easily researched is IF HUMANS have all these same wonderful brain parts then WHY don't all of us HUMANS on this planet react with the same emotions to the same event?

It is my belief that if humans could enter a machine and share our most intimate thoughts and learned knowledge with animals and they could share their thoughts,knowledge and instincts with humans that we would exit the machine nothing more than a lowly, humble creature. I really don't think I want to know what "wild animals" think of us as the locusts that we really are on this shrinking planet. KK

I am not sure if bluebirds and other songbirds grieve. Perhaps, as others have pointed out, their instinct is so survival-driven that grief may not be a feature of their emotional landscape.

Bluebirds do clearly display many identifiable emotions such as fear, anger and joy. We can only speculate how such emotional states are actually experienced by birds.

Other longer lived, monogamous birds such as geese and parrots do display emotions that appear to resemble grief. Konrad Lorenz, the great Austrian animal behavior, certainly believed that geese often mourn for lost partners and wrote of this extensively.

Anyone who has ever lived with a very tame parrot (as I have for 25 years) will tell you that these birds do indeed grieve very deeply if separated from a beloved owner.

Wonderful books on the mental processes of birds include:

Barber, Theodore

The Human Nature of Birds

Lorenz, Konrad

Here Am I--Where Are You?: The Behavior of the Greylag Goose
King Solomon's Ring

Skutch, Alexander

The Minds of Birds

Felicia

Sykesville, MD

Yes! I agree! I have a parrot which shows emotions and feelings--so,
parrots are birds and they are related to all bird species. It's been
studied and proven that birds are one of nature's most intelligent
creatures! Linda in NW GA

Sorry, guys, but after a week or so of considering the matter in re bluebirds, I find that I, too, am beginning to grieve. Enough, already ! Dean Sheldon, Greenwich, OH

Bev,

Your message brought tears to my eyes. I have been watching my
WEBL very closely and did notice many things you stated. While
the female is in the nest box incubating the eggs. The male will fly
to the box and peek in with food in it's mouth, he'll then fly into the
tree just above the nest box. She will then fly out of the nest box
into the tree next to him to receive the food. They DO really care
about each other.

My WEBL are on their second brood and this time she has 6 eggs!
She really loves her home. The two fledgling from the 1st brood hang
around a lot and I'm sure they will help feed the new hatchlings also.
They ALL work so well together.

Gail Linehan
Grants Pass, OR

From: Michele [mailto:mbizzario65"at"yahoo.com]
Sent: Tuesday, June 20, 2006 2:43 PM
Subject: Do Baby Bluebirds Grieve

Hi Bev,

I really enjoyed your take on the bluebirds and their emotions. I have to say I agree with everything you wrote. I have often thought to myself if humans acted more like bluebirds the world would be a better place. The male bluebird is so attentive and helpful to the female. He takes such an active role in the parenting, feeding and protecting. They both work together as a team. I too got tears in my eyes reading you post - thanks for sharing.

Michele from Guilford, CT

Hi Keith,

No one could say it better than that. Even "emotions" are a human concept. We just need to marvel at these little blue jewels. We could learn a lot from them. Even House Sparrows don't kill as brutally as some of the so called "humans" do daily, and when HOSP do, they do they are just trying to survive.

Rob Barron
Warrenton, Virginia

I think this has been a very refreshing topic. The poster observed a different behavior from one of the fledglings and wondered if it had any connection with the loss of his mother.

I definitely think animals have "feelings" and that could be the same as emotions. Keith's posts portrays that. I think they react as differently to situations as humans do.

If a female is left with a brood of 5 or 6 babies to feed, she does not have time to sit and mourn. One that has no eggs or babies may behave a little differently. Also, we may question does the female and male react the same.
We know the male HOSP doesn't waste many minutes finding another female if something happens to his mate.

Backyard birds teach us so many wonderful things!

I had the Mom to dive-bomb me today over the empty nest that the babies fledged from yesterday. I guess she still has "feelings" for the nest and box!!! I did go ahead and clean out the dirty nest and hope she is saying to me she plans to nest for the third time!

Evelyn, LA

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