Immediately after my son was born, I wished I were a marsupial.
Marsupials have a short pregnancy, then give birth to itty bitty teeny weeny creatures – the size of a jelly bean – which hang out in a pouch as they grow. They say placental mammals like me have the advantage, evolutionarily speaking, because a jelly bean in a pouch is more vulnerable than a jelly bean in amniotic fluid: but! After nine months of pregnancy and a painful, traumatic labor, I sure envied kangaroos.
Right now I'm just glad I'm not oviparous. Through the door of the little house I've been watching a pair of robins, a mother and her baby. The baby isn't really a baby; he has all his feathers and he can fly and he's just as big as she is. He's a juvenile, I guess. He has the breast markings of a juvenile. But lord almighty he acts like a baby. He follows immediately behind his mother and chirps nonstop. He's the noisiest thing I ever saw. His mom makes three hops and he makes three hops and hey! hey! hey! he says. Every so often she'll turn to feed him and he'll be silent for a moment and then hey! hey! hey! he says again. Once the mother turned on him and shouted S Q U A W K ! and I laughed, because although I'm not oviparous I'm sure I've said the exact same thing to my children.
1 comment:
I remember seeing a documentary or nature program when I was maybe 13 that included a bit about kangaroo birth. There was this amazing video footage showing the little bean-sized newborn squirming its way through the mother's pouch.
I loved your description of the robin mother & kid. Hilarious!
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