Zebra finches have some interesting things to tell us about parenting with a partner. Seriously, these birds are here to give relationship and parenting advice.
Let’s listen up.
Monogamous, lifelong coupling
These finches form monogamous, lifelong couples. When they’re ready to get down and make baby birds together, they split the duties evenly, something biologists call bi-parental care. From building the nest to incubating the eggs to feeding and defending the chicks, the parents divide the child-rearing responsibilities.
Babycare scheduling
And they engage in interactive verbal communication to figure out the process. Yes, that’s right, these birds hash out baby-raising schedules. One bird sits on the eggs while the other goes out and forages. Returning at an apparently agreed-upon time, the birds then switch roles so no one is stuck for too long sitting on those precious eggs.
Scientists observed that these birds had their schedules down pat — they would rotate in 30-minute shifts between foraging and sitting on the eggs. When one bird would return from foraging, the couple would engage in a usual “vocal exchange.” Maybe they shared tips on where to find good berries or chatted about how the eggs are doing. Who knows? To investigate how their communication factors into their parenting methods, researchers messed up these well-laid plans.
When the dad returns late…
The scientists (describing their study in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society), followed 12 male-female pairs of breeding zebra finches in a large aviary. As the male left the nest to forage, scientists captured the bird and held him for an hour. When the male bird was released, of course, he made haste back to the nest. After the male bird showed up late, the vocalizations became faster and more intense than normal. The usual chatter turned into a heated exchange.
So far, this sounds very familiar. When my wife is on baby duty and I return late, she has a good reason to be upset, and I, the tardy father, have some explaining to do. But here’s the real interesting element of this study: when the birds spent more time in their vocal exchanges, they were able to normalize their co-parenting duties.
In Science, Karl Gruber discusses the effect of extensive vocal exchange between the bird partners results in a return to the previous parenting schedule.
“If the late-arriving male called only a few times (< 40 calls) then the female went off for anything between 20 to 60 minutes, depending on how late the male was. But if the delayed male called extensively (> 40 calls) the female was back from her foraging break in under 30 minutes. This shows that the birds don’t just use a tit-for-tat strategy, but instead they talk about it, the authors say, and when the male has a good excuse for its tardiness the female responds by getting back from her foraging shift on time.”
This is great, and so enlightening.
I imagine the “vocal negotiation” going something like this.
Male bird: “Hunny, I know I’m late but…”
Female bird: “A whole hour late! I was so worried!”
Male bird: “You’re not going to believe this, but…”
Female bird: “I’ve been incubating these eggs the whole time you’ve been away and my back is killing me! I need to stretch my wings and forage, ASAP, and you show up an hour late. We had an agreement.”
Male bird: ” I know babe, I was on schedule to get back and take over, but some human trapped me! I was losing my mind out there and this dude was just watching me and TAKING NOTES like a goddamn psycho!”
Etc., etc. Eventually the couple hashes it all out, and, for this species, that apparently takes more than 40 back-and-forth exchanges.
If you are a parent with a partner, you’ve probably been in a similar situation.
One stressed-out Zebra Finch
A few weeks ago, my wife gave me the weekend off to go surfing. (She’s awesome like that.) We agreed that I got to spend Friday and Saturday on the beach, but I’d leave early Sunday morning and get back before noon. This would give her enough time to relax all day before she left for a few days, when I would take over full-time baby duty.
Well, I stuck to the plan, but, like that stressed-out zebra finch, outside forces prevented me from keeping my part of the bargain. I-95 traffic was far worse than usual, and it kept me getting home to my wife and baby. I was freaking out the whole time and chirping loudly (i.e., yelling at Maryland drivers going too slow in the left lane or refusing to use any turn signals).
When I returned, I explained the situation, in detail, to my wife. While I doubt we had bird-level exchanges of more than 40, we both made our points and listened to those of the other. And, in the end, she was understanding. She left the house and I took over baby duty. Even though she had spent the past two days caring for our baby, and more time on Sunday than we had agreed upon, she returned on time from her excursion. The conversation about my tardiness had set us back on track.
My 15-month old is growing like a weed, and I want to spend as much time with my kid as possible. But, at the same time, it’s so easy to get burned out as the day flies by with all the kid-related tasks at hand. Negotiating a co-parenting schedule is crucial, even for a guy like me who hates scheduling things. If both partners are in agreement on when they get some alone time, the stage is set for a healthy balance between family time, solo parenting time and that much-needed free time.
In a study published in May, researchers found other patterns of vocal communication between bird parents. In this study, researchers followed bi-parental pairs of birds from the big tit species (yes, you read that correctly), and found that the parents communicated in different ways during different phases of child-rearing.
The researchers weren’t able to parse exactly how the birds were communicating and changing their co-parenting schedules: “Whether or not partners communicate with each other to adjust their behaviour remains an open question.” Still, various species of biparental birds communicate extensively with each other in the process of rearing their young.
Bird couples argue about the stresses of co-parenting. Bird partners hash it out. But, in the end, these more intense discussions lead, not to extended frustration or retaliatory behavior, but to enhanced cooperation.
I’m always looking to other members of the Animal Kingdom for advice on how to be a decent member of this insane species of ours.
So when it comes to sharing child duties, I think we could learn something from finches and tits.
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Watch the video here.
Photo: CC Wikimedia
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