March 31, 2016. And now we slip out of March into April, the cruelest month according to some poet who probably held a grudge against ... IDK, lilacs? (Bonus point quiz at the end.)
Let’s get birdie wordy nerdy about grudges. People hold grudges against someone who hurt or seriously disturbed them. My Chesapeake retriever hated anyone carrying a fishing pole and my Rottweiler hated men wearing hats. Family parrots a hold a grudge against 10 year old kids wearing a dark colored hoodie with the hood up (IDKY) and evil no good baby strollers, although I don’t know what harm a baby stroller ever did to my parrots either.
Some skua is going to hate this guy! An AMLR scientist records the number of eggs found in a skua nest. (Photo by Dr. Roger Hewitt)
And now new information on holding grudges takes the behavior up several notches. Antarctic birds who rarely see humans and who don’t have long generations of ancestors who interacted with humans have the ability to recognize human faces and carry grudges against people who bother their nests.
Antarctic skuas living on King George Island, just off the Antarctic Peninsula, probably encountered humans for the first time at some point in the last 60 years, during which period scientific expeditions to the southernmost continent have become increasingly common.
Among the latest people to have interacted with this particular population of birds are researchers from a collaboration of Korean institutions, who report ... that the skuas quickly learned to identify which members of the team had intruded on their nests.
Being scientists, they had to check out this observation and bother the birds yet again in the name of Science. They sent a previous intruder back to the nests along with another human who’d never approached the nest. Both humans were dressed the same. And the skuas always flew at and tried to drive off the person who’d already disturbed the nest. The birds ignored the innocent human. Because the area has high winds, researchers concluded it wasn’t scent that the skuas used to identify the intruder, it was the human’s face!
Antarctic brown skua - check out that beak! Do you want this bird to hold a grudge against you? Also, consider this: how does the bird steal milk from nursing elephant seals? (photo by Rob Oo)
Further evidence of the astuteness of Antarctic skuas can be found in their highly adaptive feeding behaviors. For instance, they have been observed pilfering food from other birds and even stealing milk from nursing elephant seals, suggesting a level of innovation that borders on cunning.
Summing up these findings in a statement, study coauthor Won Young Lee said “it is amazing that brown skuas, which evolved and lived in human-free habitats, recognized individual humans just after three or four visits. It seems that they have very high levels of cognitive abilities.”
Here’s a short video showing the skuas going after the repeat intruder and ignoring the innocent guy.
I began to wonder ~ What exactly is a grudge?
- A deep-seated feeling of resentment or rancor.
- Deep-seated animosity or ill-feeling about something or someone.
- Sullen malice or malevolence; cherished malice, enmity, or dislike; ill will; an old cause of hatred or quarrel.
Hmmm. Do I hold grudges, i.e., have any deep-seated feelings of resentment or rancor or cherished malice? That sounds hideous. I try to find common ground with people, even my concealed-carry Limbaugh-listening neighbor. We both love his Golden Lab puppy and, in our brief encounters, talking to each other via the dog circumvents our vast differences. Sometimes the common ground isn’t enough to out-weigh a person’s negatives. There are people I avoid and don’t want to engage with based on their past performances. Per these grudge definitions, though, this isn’t holding a grudge. It’s a casual emotion, a jerk-avoidance that keeps life smoother.
What about these skuas? Do they hold deep-seated feelings of rancor? Rancor circles back to malice and heavy emotions: bitter, long-lasting resentment; the deepest malignity or spite; deep-seated enmity or malice; inveterate hatred. Maybe skuas hold ill-feeling: animosity or rancor. Charming circle of nasty feelings. This reminds me of the lousy definitions for mountain as “an elevated portion of earth bigger than a hill” and a hill as “an elevated yada yada smaller than a mountain.”
I don’t understand what skuas are thinking (knew that at the beginning). Do they hold grudges based on these definitions? Maybe they feel animosity (a feeling of strong dislike) or perhaps it’s just that they, too, avoid jerks (foolish, rude, or contemptible persons). The skuas didn’t attack the intruder and that beak looks dangerous. So maybe they are merely trying to clear out the jerks.
What about you? Do you hold grudges or take the jerk-avoidance route?
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Bonus from T.S. Eliot since you read this far: The waste land
APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
PROMISED YOU A QUIZ FOR BONUS POINTS (ADD TO THE ZERO ALREADY AWARDED). NAME THE SOURCE:
"Ah, Sharon Lipschutz", said the young man. "How that name comes up. Mixing memory and desire.”
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