Let’s fall in love

A piece on animal courtship for Country Life 12 February issue, in time for Valentine’s Day

WIN or lose, sink or swim/One thing is certain, we’ll never give in.’ These immortal lines are from We All Stand Together, a song featuring a frog chorus. Its composer, Sir Paul McCartney, took his inspiration from an old favourite 1958 Rupert Bear Annual, with an illustration by Alfred Bestall of a large frog conducting a choir of amphibians by moonlight.

Do frogs sing together? Male frogs (Rana temporaria) choose the best breeding ground and croak to attract a mate and to ward off rivals. When there’s a crowd around the spring pond, the love songs become competitive and the volume rises.

As Sir Paul sings, wooing is vitally important, to frogs and to all animals. With many males likely to end up on the losing side, persistence is all when it comes to finding a mate. Courtship— a quaint term redolent of chivalrous knights bearing red roses—is a serious business.

An essential prelude to mating, it gives animals ‘the opportunity to present information about their quality as a potential mate,’ states Prof Michael Breed, an expert in animal courtship at the University of Colorado, US.

Generally, it is the males that advertise their wares and the females—which have more invested in their reproductive systems and usually have to bring up the brood—that make the buying decisions. They seek out strong, resilient traits and try to avoid risks such as disease. Males have a greater say in mate choice among animals where the parenting is shared. However, on the whole, it is the chaps that have the fancier costumes, the more tuneful arias and the exaggerated dance moves.

Chaucer’s The Parliament of Fowls features birds gathering on St Valentine’s Day. Among his descriptions of each one’s characteristics —the popinjay full of delicacy, the peacock with his bright angel’s feathers—is the ‘wedded turtel’. The turtle dove (Streptopelia turtur) is the original lovebird, celebrated in Shakespeare, as well as in the listicle Christmas song, because of its habit of partnering for life after much chest-puffing and head-ducking. As a migratory bird, together with geese and some swans, the turtle dove’s lifetime pairing is for practical rather than romantic reasons; it saves energy not to have to seek out a mate after every long-haul flight. The courtship ritual of the mute swan is far from silent, with grunting and hissing, but it is most famous for its conclusion. After some wing-beating, the pair face each other and bow, their necks making a perfect love heart, to the eternal gratification of greetings-card makers.

Ravens generally pair for life, after wooing with daring aerobatic displays and a variety of calls. A raven that has lost a mate will reproduce its partner’s calls to encourage its return. It is an intriguing and moving gesture, according to James Macdonald Lockhart in Wild Air, ‘by adopting its partner’s voice, the remaining bird seems to articulate its sense of loss: I have lost you, the sound of you.’

Other creatures fond of serenading potential partners include house mice and moles. The male house mouse (Mus musculus) sings at a pitch too high for human ears, his utterings unromantically known as ultrasonic vocalisations. Miss Mouse will listen intently for intricate melodies—the more complex the tune, the fitter the male. If she judges him eligible, she may be tempted to join in with some impromptu duetting. This slows down her scampering and indicates to the male that the time is right. Underground, moles (Talpa europaea) perform love ditties. Vocalisation is an efficient way for the myopic ‘gentleman in the black velvet waistcoat’ to find his mate.

We have a greater chance of eavesdropping on courting hedgehogs, who puff and snuffle loudly to find each other in the midnight garden. Zoologist Maurice Burton was one of the first English writers to describe what happens when the snorting creatures meet face to face: ‘He begins to walk round her, she constantly pivoting so her nose is directed towards him.’ Mating requires a good deal of persuasion and persistence and it is usually the older dominant male that succeeds.

Birds are the natural world’s most obvious choristers. The dawn chorus is at its loudest in April and May, although legend has it that birds choose their partners on February 14. Another avian dating technique is courtship feeding. The male osprey (Pandion haliaetus) presents his mate with fish to demonstrate he will be able to keep her fed when incubating the eggs for up to six weeks. He will continue to prove himself handy about the place by helping to renovate the 3ft-wide nest.

The most graceful example of gift-giving is that of the great crested grebe (Podiceps cristatus). First comes an elegant aqua ballet. After a flare of the neck ruff and more headshaking than Craig Revel Horwood judging Strictly Come Dancing, the birds turn their heads and coyly preen before diving to collect water weed, rearing up out of the water, breast to breast. Mirroring each movement with their similar plumage, this is a dance of equals. However, for most bird performers, the boot is firmly on the foot of the male. Male black grouse and capercaillie, gathering in a lek (moorland for the former, pine forest for the latter), display their feathers to take up as much space as possible, flutter-jumping and running at rivals, head down. The females spectate from the sidelines, ready to choose.

The female adder (Vipera berus) also witnesses dad dancing as her potential partner faces off a rival by rearing up, posturing and pushing in a strenuous effort to guard his mate. Yet with the brown hare (Lepus europaeus), it is the female who is the aggressor. The famous ‘mad March’ dancing or boxing movements are her attempts to fend off the male by trading blows with her front feet.

Other creatures keep their distance, deploying visual or scented signals. The male smooth newt (Lissotriton vulgaris) aims to gain the female’s attention by raising his crest and lasciviously whipping his tail about. Male bumblebees lay a trail of pheromones to attract a queen and continuously patrol the self-made scent circuits in the hope she will turn up.

Singing, dancing, fighting, gift-giving and spraying scent around—all behaviours we can recognise, from a Saturday-night disco to gestures of the animal kingdom.

Bird of paradise

Each of the 30-plus species has its

own colouring and courtship rituals,

but all involve posing, crouching, bowing,

ruff-raising and tail-feather fanning.

Young males observe elders and practise

with each other. After the performance,

the females move in and may

touch the feathers

Blue-footed boobies (below)

This inhabitant of the Galapagos Islands

uses his bright-blue feet to kick off his

mating ritual, taking large slow steps

to give his mate a proper eyeful. After

stretching out his long dark wings and

bowing, his partner will join in the dance,

as he continues to flash his blue suede

shoes to remind her of his great asset

Black widow spider

How do you approach a partner who’s

twice your size and very likely to kill

you? Unsurprisingly, black widows

are solitary, apart from when the urge

to reproduce overcomes the killer fact

that females sometimes murder and

eat males after mating

Bowerbird

Native to Australia and New Guinea,

the Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen of the

avian world spends hours decorating

a bower using brightly coloured objects,

such as shells, feathers, berries and

even plastic, with a fondness for blue.

The satin bowerbird Ptilonorhynchus

violaceus makes a saliva and vegetable

pulp paste to paint the bower’s interior.

Females then inspect and choose the

best-decorated homes

Giraffes

Giraffes don’t go on heat, nor do they

have a breeding season, make mating

calls or give visual clues that they’re

ready to mate. The male has to keep

approaching and nudging the female

until she urinates into his mouth so

he can tell if the chemical

signals are right

Pufferfish

The male white-spotted

pufferfish Torquigener

albomaculosus takes

up to a week to make

geometrically-patterned

6ft-wide circles in the

sand of the seabed, creating

peaks and troughs

with his fins to show the

female he has chosen the

best patch of sand for a nest

Giraffes may be graceful, but their courtship is anything but, involving a gulp of urine

Alamy; Getty; Shutterstock