Today, I as I was walking out to the parking lot, I saw a bluebird sitting on the rail of the bridge I have to cross to get to my car. It looked at me, and then jumped off, head down, wings tucked in tight for a freefall, and at the last second spread it's wings and soared down the little valley that has the creek at the bottom.
Then I started letting my mind wander around starting with that topic the rest of the way to the car:
Wow, isn't it neat that birds just know how to fly? I wish people just knew how to fly. Well, I guess even birds have to learn. That's why sometimes on the farm we'd get the treat of seeing a baby, well, maybe a teenager, get pushed out of the nest by its parents. It'd hop along on the ground trying various wing-flapping options hoping to figure out how to fly before a coyote figured out how nice a dinner a teenage bird can be. Apparently the parents had also considered the coyote issue, and they would scream at me and try to take my eyes out if I went to play with it. If I just sat back and watched from a safe enough distance and stayed really still, one of the parents would circle overhead while the other would drop to the ground, usually with a snack, and do what looked for all the world to me like demonstrations of how to get started.
So birds to have to learn how to fly. Cows don't really have to learn how to walk, though. When a calf is born he pretty much stands up on the first try. Yeah, there's a lot of licking and prodding by mom, but a calf is born just knowing how to walk. That's different from humans. We might be born knowing how to walk, but have to wait several months before the bone and muscle has developed enough to actually pull it off.
Hmmm, that's interesting, actually. Pretty much all prey species are basically born running. Cows, deer, horses, giraffes, wildebeest, etc... they all have it figured out from the time they touchdown in our world. Predator species, like dogs, cats, wolves, mountain lions, regular lions, oh my, etc... are born too early and can just barely wiggle to where they need to be to nurse. They don't even have their eyes open yet!
Does that mean that humans are more predator than prey? Are gorillas predators? Sometimes, I guess, but usually not. Maybe people aren't necessarily predators, just different from other prey species. Like birds aren't born being able to locomote, but that doesn't make them predators. It just means they have a niche in the environment that enables them to have helpless young without having to immediately worry about them being eaten by a lion. We apes have a niche like that, too, because we can carry our babies with us. Cows and deer don't really have that option, so their babies have to be able to run from the second they are born.
Huh, where do marsupials fall, then? Australia is SO WEIRD. Man, if it's not poisonous it's trying to eat your face, tear your eyes out, or eviscerate you with a swift kick to the stomach. I guess marsupials are born knowing what to do, I mean they have to crawl up mom's fur to get into the out-side pouch they'll finish gestating in. That is really weird, to make a baby in an inside-pouch, push out a half-done baby, and then put it in an out-side pouch to finish off. Actually, it'd be kind of nice if people were like that. I'd be fine with having a half-done baby the side of a large lima bean the normal way and finish baking it in an outside pouch. Well, actually, that's what we already do, it's just the outside pouch is called a "baby sling" or more commonly "momma or daddy's arms."
It must be really weird to have a nearly-ready baby jumping in and out of your pouch all day long. Never mind. I like our way better - we can take off the pouch and don't get permanent stretch marks from little Joey popping in and out after he already knows how to bounce around. And eviscerate tourists that get too close with their cameras. Australia is SO WEIRD.
What is the one thing that all mammals are already born knowing how to do? I guess nurse. That's the one survival skill that unites all mammals in a common, "we didn't have to learn that, we just knew from the the second we were born, darn it," bond.
Well, that's not entirely true. There were always a couple stupid calves every year that couldn't figure it out and had to be drug around to the momma cow's side, bringing Daddy or I way too close to momma cow's powerful hind legs, to try to force the calf to latch onto a teat. Momma cow at this point is freaked out, especially if this was her first, because (a) something HUGE just popped out of her and she could've been eaten by a mountain lion while all that immobilized Lamaze breathing and pushing and pain was going on, (b) her placenta is out and there is the smell of blood and a new-born, slow, easy meal wafting around to all the local predator species, and (c) her calf is also freaked out that it's hungry and cold and way too bright and WTF is going on right now?!! Add to the stress momma cow is feeling: two to four two-legged creatures that usually mean "good food is about to happen to her" but sometimes also mean shots or de-horning (which sucks for a cow) are manhandling her calf which is typically by this point uttering helpless, heart-wrenching little bleats of "This sucks, mom, can I go back in? I don't like the real world, and these two-legged creatures are freaking me out!" Anyway, when momma cow is in that state of mind, being within easy kicking distance is no good place to be. What was the point of this? Oh, yeah, sometimes babies don't even know how to nurse when born.
I wonder if that is always true? I know human babies sometimes have trouble figuring it out, or maybe their mommas have trouble, and that there are nurses whose entire jobs are teaching mommas and babies to nurse. Maybe that's where the word nurse comes from? Probably not. Maybe the occasional lack-of-nursing-instinct only happens to animals where someone can intervene and teach. Natural selection should've already taken care of that one, for sure.
I got to my apartment at around:
I wonder about bears. Are they born just as helpless as cats, dogs, and humans? Or are they born just as ready-to-run as deer and giraffes? I'll have to look that up. Now, turtles, man, that's an odd species. They're born not only knowing how to walk, but sometimes how to swim and which direction to waddle in until they can start swimming. Breathing! Maybe that's what really unites us all in the one thing we figured out from the second we left our placental sack.
So that was my train of thought this afternoon, all inspired by one bird diving off a bridge. And now I'm thinking about trains. Comment if you got that reference!
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