Herding Behaviour in Children

While on the subject of predators and children I thought I might as well tell this little story.

In Volume 1 of Narrow Roads of Gene Land, in the introduction to his paper Geometry for the Selfish Herd, William Hamilton talks about coming across a copy of Francis Galton's Inquiry into Human Faculty in a second-hand bookshop:

... Re-reading it after my interest (or irritation) over aggregation had been re-stimulated by other more holistic interpretations, I noticed some remarks about cattle in South Africa. These led me to an obscure paper by Galton, which I think few can have read. His argument was on the line I was already inclined to. Galton, I was surprised to be reminded in the book, had personally explored Damaraland in southern Africa and had observed for himself half-wild cattle in a terrain where lions and other large predators were still common. To see is to sympathize, especially when the observed animal is a mammal; moreover Galton probably personally experienced the sensation of safety from surprise attack when walking in the savannah among cows as compared to when walking alone. ...

I have had a rather similar experience to the one described above, not in the wilds of Africa but in central Reading. When my daughter was young I often used to take her and her friends out to play in the field next to our flats (since built on, alas). Usually I would take a ball with me and as soon as we got into the field I would kick it as high and as far as I could, and the children would scamper off after it. Then I would get out a book or paper to read while the children played. For some reason this day we didn't have a ball with us. Instead the children were running around me chasing each other in circles of about 3 to 5 metres radius. This 'electron cloud' of children kept up with me as I walked out towards the middle of the field. Then suddenly, without anything being said, the children were all orbiting within 2 metres of me - right under my elbows. I looked up to see what had caused this. A man with an alsatian dog had just come into the far corner of the field, the dog was off its leash and running up and down along the far hedge. The children must have seen the dog out of the corner of their eyes and subconsciously recognised it as a danger; enough of a danger to adjust the size of their 'orbits' but not enough to stop their game. The dog didn't come anywhere near us but the children continued to play within their smaller orbits until the man and alsatian left the field a few minutes later. 

Pluvialis on Predators and Young Children

A somewhat fragile Helen Macdonald visits a falconry fair and still manages to see things that no one else notices:

The worst moment of the fair, though? Indubitably the golden eagle. A tiercel, but still with killing talons the size and thickness of your index finger, sitting on a bow-perch. He was very chilled. His plumy hackles blew in the wind as he loafed, cocking an eye up to the thermally sky to watch kites, swallows and hobbies passing through, far above. He was surrounded by people, and even I was impressed by how utterly unconcerned he was. A photographer kneeled three feet from his broad mailed chest, pushing a macro lens into his face. About five inches from his face. Wow, I thought. That’s probably not that advisable, because the eagle’s leash gives it, oh, a good five feet leeway. I have been grabbed by an eagle. When you are grabbed by an eagle – mine was by the shoulder – you actually cannot do anything. You become entirely helpless. Not only because an eagle is stronger than you, but because shock cuts in almost instantly. You understand, these birds kill wolves. Read that again. They really do. And deer.

So as I watched this photographer, I was faintly nervous. Another camera appeared, and got even closer. The eagle looked a teeny bit less relaxed. And then, with a shock as if I'd put my hand into a plug socket while jumping waist-deep into an icy pool, I watched a tiny, fair-haired, not-very-good-at-walking eighteen-month old child walk unsteadily between the eagle and the photographer, brushing the front of the eagle as it did so. The eagle started in surprise, and leaned its snaky head forward, hackles risen, to clop at the child. It didn’t mean to touch the child, and it didn’t, but it was a mite hacked off. And I felt sick and dizzy. If the eagle had done what it might have done—grabbed the child—which would to it have been as rapid and as easy as someone putting out a hand to pick up a cup of tea, the child would have been dead in seconds. No-one seemed to notice, or see what had happened. For god’s sake, what is wrong with people? No-one would let a tiny toddler walk in front of a leopard, or a lion? Or would they? When I was in South Africa, many years ago, I visited a game farm where they bred King cheetahs. Which paced the fences, watching the crowds. You’d see families with small kids walking along, and a cheetah pacing elegantly along, just the other side of the chainlink, in step with the smallest and weakest child, eyes fixed, locked on them. “Look, Thomas!” I heard one woman say in delight. “The cheetah likes you best.” Christ.

Come to think of it, maybe she was seeing these things because she was feeling so fragile.

The Crow's Nest

One day back in early March I was gazing out of the kitchen window while doing the washing-up, when I noticed a pair of carrion crows (Corvus corone) building a nest in a tree in the grounds of Reading School.  At about 30m tall, the tree is the tallest in the area, and the crows had built their nest in the thin branches right at the top.  On March 10th and 11th both of the crows were visiting the nest frequently and presumably they were still building it.  Here are a few photos I took of them from that period:

Later in March I saw them visiting the nest much less often and at some times I even thought they must have abandoned the nest.  However, in early April I realised that a dark shape on the top of the nest must be one of the birds sitting on eggs.  This is a photo from April 6th:

Then today, April 9th, neither of the birds was sitting on the nest but they were still occasionally returning to it and poking their heads into it.  Presumably the eggs have hatched and the pair are now feeding their young.  One final photo, from today:

Conkers!

For the past few weeks there has been a continual fall of horse chestnuts from the trees around our flats.  Every few minutes night and day we hear the sound of one crashing through the leaves and then hitting the ground with a thud.  If the wind is up they sometimes hit our flat roof and bounce several times.  Occasionally there is a metallic clunk as one hits a car in the grounds of the flats that were built on the neighbouring field; I find this particularly satisfying. 

During daylight a flock of between 4 and 10 wood pigeons browses on the lawn out the front and I have several times seen falling conkers landing close to them. The pigeons just look round and carry on pecking at the ground.  It wouldn't surprise me to find a concussed pigeon down there some day.

 

Some of the chestnuts are cleared away by squirrels but by far the most are taken away by humans who seem to be fascinated by them, children especially, but not exclusively: I have seen otherwise quite respectable adults stop and gather them up.

Buzzard

This afternoon I saw a buzzard being mobbed by a carrion crow over Reading University grounds.  It was large, about the  size of a grey heron, darkish-coloured with white patches under its wings.  The above photo by Sergey Yesileev shows just what it looked like.  It flew at below tree-top level from the lake towards the Earley Gate entrance and then turned right into a tree on the edge of the Wilderness.  Pigeons scattered in all directions, two almost bumping into each other in their haste to get away from it.  The crow flew off more slowly back towards the lake. (Photo by Sergey Yeliseev.)