I’ve been reading the book Living as a Bird by Vinciane Despret, a Belgian philosopher of science, that covers various studies of avian life and unpacks and dissects a multitude of perspectives on territoriality, paying particular attention to ethological insights, ethology being the study of animal behaviour. In scientific history, territorial behavior in birds has often been linked to aggressivity and rivalry. Early theories suggested that territories served primarily to guarantee exclusive access to resources necessary for survival, including mates. This notion that females are simply resources for males is one that faced much reluctance to abandon by scientists, in part due to the introduction of darwinian theory, but most likely also because of the patriarchal zeitgeist of the 19th century. Synchronicities are rife throughout Despret’s writing, one example being the first appearance of the word ‘territory’ in ornithological literature, with its very strong connotation of ‘the taking over of an exclusive area or property’ coinciding with the redefinition of land ownership in the 17th century as a resource to be controlled, owned, and exploited for economic gain – i.e. reappropriated. Modernist ideologies, influenced by industrialisation, capitalism, and the Enlightenment gave way to a philosophical theory on the subject of land use, as one of “possessive individualism, that reconfigured political society as a mechanism for the protection of individual property” (Despret, 2021), resulting in the expulsion of peasant communities from their homes and the eradication of the ‘commons’ – i.e shared resources. Nevertheless Despret is quick to challenge her perceived connections, offering the insight that this early use of the term ‘territory’ in ornithology was in fact used only in the description of the methods used to confine birds within aviaries. She goes on to list a plethora of other connections, that weaken her initial correlation, and yet this process of considering all associations, free of a self-seeking confirmation-driven internal probe encourages her to be vigilant of the word ‘territory’ and its many manifestations that might bring on impoverished habits of thinking.
It seems that projection, or a reflection of prevailing human attitudes can all too easily show up in our understanding of other-than-human beings. By focusing on aggressiveness and territorialisation, we prevent ourselves from considering all the other dimensions of bird life. Despret outlines that many of the conclusions of aggressivity derived from competitive behaviour have arisen from fragmented observations, and in settings completely displaced from birds’ natural habitats (e.g. laboratories). Naturalists, on the other hand, such as Henry Eliot Howard, challenged theories of competition around females, pointing out that “in other species females fought with other females, couples with couples, or even sometimes a couple of birds might attack a solitary male or female” (Despret, 2021). Female ornithologists Margaret Nice and Barbara Blanchard too, noticed other attributes in female birds that negated submissive tendencies. All three of these individuals are linked in their methodology, placing more importance on sustained observation and engagement with birds, consequently obtaining deeper insights into what mattered most to them when they defined their territories. This attribution of bird biography was an alternative way of creating a certain kind of intimacy with birds, turning them from isolated test subject, to beings with subjectivities in their own right. If it can be argued that what we discover is closely related to the question we are asking however, might we say that Nice and Blanchards findings were an overcompensatory result of being women themselves within the midst of academic male chauvinism? I would disagree with this assertion, as they broke away from the prevailing fields of ornithology, to focus instead on behavioural variations, superseding the unduly simplifications of specimen classification. Perhaps the truest synergies can only be found as a result of increasing intimacy.
These ‘bird biographies’, fostering such intimacies, was initially made possible by attaching colored bands to their legs. Through this, Nice and Blanchard were able to know and understand birds individually, and through this recognise a whole host of differences between their behaviours. Certain birds tolerated others in their territory due to personal relationships, where conflict might be expected otherwise. Others changed territory without any obvious pressure to do so. Some assumed their previous territory upon returning from migration, in some cases maintaining this behaviour throughout the course of their entire lives. Others changed frequently. The examples given here hardly cover the vast amount of observations made, and to truly pay tribute I would need to write a book on the topic, something that Despret has fortunately already done so. What I have gleaned from her book is that observational practices matter, as they allow us to understand what matters to birds, with their own responses demonstrating a multiplicity of ‘modes of being’ as Despret puts it – “summer resident, winter resident, male, female, intruder, resident, resident taking on the role of intruder, intruder taking on the role of resident, male tyrant subsequently calming down, distracted female, combative female” (2021). Territory then becomes a process, rather than a static entity purely bounded by geographical lines, and the perception of resemblances become reliant on the differences that emerge from such modes of attentiveness.
In a clear failure to acknowledge this level of curiosity in ‘otherness’, The sociologist, Zygunt Bauman, in his book ‘Does Ethics Have a Chance in the World Of Consumers’ attributes newly-found habituating social habits of wasps, who were previously thought to confine their sociability to their nests, to the experiences of interlocking diasporas had by the investigating foreign scholars in their new multicultural home, the forests of Panama. In a similar method to Nice and Blanchard’s observations of birds, this discovery was only made possible by marking a certain number of wasps in order to take note of their individual behaviour. The problem here lies in Bauman’s indifference towards this change in method of observation, viewing the revelation of such fluidity of membership as the byproduct of a changed human attitude. While it is important to note that evolving circumstances can give rise to fresh questions, Despret argues that we must remind ourselves it is “the binoculars, tags, chips, statistics, sonograms, notebooks, paint markings, wired-up nests – in other words all the instruments which help make things visible, which establish connection, which bring an intimacy to our understanding and which throw light on similarities and differences, on trajectories and habits,” (2021) and not the anthropocentric ideas of the scientists themselves. To understand differently is, above all, to understand more.
Returning to bird territoriality, the Zoologist Warder Clyde Allee writes that researchers harbour a tendency to record and overemphasise dramatic incidents, whereas non-human life, under many conditions, may merely persist (1949). Such dramatic incidents may only seem so to us due to the appeal they have on our senses and as a result lead us to only comprehend otherness from the basis of our sensory limitations. “The quiet retirement of animals capable of extreme activity is often a fundamental part of living” (Allee, 1949). Tranquility then might be crucial to animal recuperation, making territory not only a place of competition, but one of refuge. To escape the trap of palpability, patience becomes a pre-requisite to observation. In Jared Verner’s sustained observations of polygamy between two groups of Long-billed Marsh Wrens in Washington State, he was able to establish multiple differences and similarities. Prolonged behaviours in both areas signaled that instead of a ‘male strategy’ it was in fact females who chose to cohabit with several others sharing the same partner, basing their decision on the quality of territory, creating unavoidable cohabitations. At one of the sites “the cycles of two females were synchronised in such a way that their nesting periods overlapped for less than two days: as the first brood began leaving the nest, the eggs of the second brood were starting to hatch. As a result, each female enjoyed almost exclusive care from the male throughout the nesting period. In contrast, at Turnbull, males only assist with feeding at the end of the season, and this synchronisation was not observed” (Despret 2021). Through these observations Verner assessed the quality of different territories and concluded that the size of a territory wasn’t as important as the quality of the resources available within it. Even so, some females still chose a male on an inferior territory, preferring exclusive help from the male, instead of an abundance of resource. This maybe alludes to the fact that birds themselves have personal personal preferences, and that not all of their choices are made out of a purely evolution-driven means. These examinations into the life of communities and relationships of interdependence bring us a little closer to how animals subjectively experience their lives. Their differences highlight their intentions and desires, or as Despret puts it, their ‘real stories and daily adventures’, bypassing the idea that humans are the only organism capable of conscious decision making.
Verner states in one of his writings that “the breeding nest was so placed precariously that I tied it firmly in place to prevent its dislodging,” breaking scientific conventions that require distance and indifference in observational matters. His supposed amateurish behaviour, stemming from an apparent need to help the bird in question brings into question whether love and appropriation amount to the same thing. In the introduction to ‘A Non-companion Species Manifesto: Humans, Wild Animals, and The Pain of Anthropomorphism’, June Dwyer states that the emotional attachments humans feel for many animals can lead to a manufacturing of reciprocity that does not exist. While a compelling read, and one that can offer another valuable mode of awareness, her solution seems a little too detached for my liking. In order to escape a harmful re-appropriation of animals she states that we must remain distant in our affections otherwise we risk the treatment of wild animals as stuffed animal companions. I do realise the inherent danger in this, but this mode of thinking attributes all modes of love to selfishness. It is true that in seeking the return of our affections love can be self serving, but the naturalist’s intervention does not necessarily ask for anything in return. In any case, if we are to completely reject our very human need for reciprocity, then we deny an emotional resonance that allows one to intervene in the first place. Such resonance is inescapable through the careful observations of another’s subjectivities. Perhaps then, it is not changing what we love, but how we love. (To avoid misrepresentation, I’d like to note that Dwyer does reach a very similar conclusion by the end of her essay). Verner’s particular mode of attentiveness is one that focuses on differences, and through this he became moved by what matters to birds.
The ecology of ideas associated with birds is a vast and intricate mapping of concepts and connections, and while models can be created, there are always exceptions to the rule, making it impossible to assign a definitive function to any given territory. What I’ve come to realize is that such exceptions are not anomalies but a vital part of life’s complexity. They challenge us to move beyond simplicity, offering a world that is harder to grasp yet infinitely richer and more captivating. This ‘poetics of attention’, as Despret dubs it, shows us how various layers of understanding can mutually enrich one another. A book I initially thought to solely represent bird subjectivity, instead offers a deeper lesson provided by an openess to all perspectives and individual life stories that might transform ‘realisation’ into a never-ending process as opposed to a cognitive space that one arrives at. Despret shows us that understanding is not an endpoint but a journey shaped by attentiveness. How might we cultivate this ‘poetics of attention’ in our own lives?
Bibliography
Despret, V. (2021) Living as a Bird. Translated by M. Buchanan. London: Polity Press.
Dwyer, J. (2007) ‘A Non-companion Species Manifesto: Humans, Wild Animals, and “The Pain of Anthropomorphism”’, South Atlantic Review, 72(3), pp. 73–89
W. C. Allee, A. E. Emerson, O. Park, T. Park and K. P. Schmidt (1949) Principles of Animal Ecology. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders, p. 6.