IN THE years before the second world war, an Austrian biologist called Konrad Lorenz used to spend his time persuading newly hatched goslings that he was their mother.
Like goslings, people have a sensitive period during which they are predisposed to learn a particular thing.Recognising their mothers is something that only a few creatures need to do.
In the case of goslings, it is that the first big, moving object you encounter on breaking out of your egg is your mother.
By one estimate, they gain two kilograms of body weight a day out on the ice, feasting on seals, and lose a kilogram a day on shore, scavenging for barnacle goslings and eggs, as the dearth of sea ice is increasingly forcing them to do.The polar bear should not become extinct.
And the subject dominated the 25th International Ethological Conference, which took place in Vienna, Lorenz's home town, on August 20th-27th.The belly of the beastThe opening session talked less of goslings and rooks than of an animal that was one of Tinbergen's favourite toys the three-spined stickleback.
And, by demonstrating that there are general principles to animals' behaviour, it has illuminated the activities of humans.Lorenz's goslings, for example, were exhibiting a phenomenon now known as imprinting.
When angry, geese vibrate their neck feathers; after routing an intruder, the gander utters a triumphant note that is echoed by his mate and young goslings.
Will Mrs Goose really go off with smooth Mr Fox, despite repeated and fun-to-join-in-with warnings from her alarmed goslings?
Jenny, the manager of Sea Lion Lodge, gives me a quick spin around in her 4x4, pointing out upland geese and their goslings, finches, king cormorants and striated caracara – the world's rarest bird of prey, but a common sight across these islands.
He can swallow a leapard frog in one gulp & has been known to attach goslings & chickens.
When you buy the Kindle edition of Konrad Lorenz's "King Solomon's Ring," rather than the paperback version, you save three dollars and fifty-eight cents, but the fetching illustrations by Lorenz of a greylag goose and its goslings walking out from the middle of a paragraph and down the right margin are separated from the text — the marginalia has been demarginalized.
