5. Do Animals Communicate?
When we think of communication, we normally think of using words-talking face-to-face, writing messages and so on. But in fact we communicate far more in other ways. Our eyes and facial expressions usually tell the truth even when our words do not.
Then there are gestures, often unconscious: raising the eyebrows, rubbing the nose, shrugging the shoulders, tapping the fingers, nodding and shaking the head. There is also the even more subtle "body-language" of posture: are you sitting-or standing-with arms or legs crossed? Is that person standing with hands in pockets, held in front of the body or hidden behind? Even the way we dress and the colours we wear communicate things to others.
So, do animals communicate? Not in words, although a parrot might be trained to repeat words and phrases which it doesn’t understand. But, as we have learnt, there is more to communication than words.
Take dogs for example. They bare their teeth to warn, wag their tails to welcome and stand firm, with hair erect, to challenge. These signals are surely the canine equivalent of the human body-language of facial expression, gesture and posture.
Colour can be important means of communication for animals. Many birds and fish change colour, for example, to attract partners during the mating season. And mating itself is commonly preceded by a special dance in which both partners participate.
6. She’s All for the Birds!
Twice a week, 58-year-old Mrs. Winifred Cass shops in the market for her main supplies, "topping up" daily by calling at local shops on her way home from work. But she’s not buying family groceries!
She returns home laden with heavy bags of mixed hen corn, pigeon corn, peanuts and large packets of bird food to feed her larger "family," the wild birds of Leeds. And she’s been doing this for 16 years.
Daily, she feeds the birds which frequent her garden, the area around the shop where she works part-time, and several patches of waste-ground near her home. Then, twice every week, she loads the carrying basket with bags of grain on to her tricycle and sets out to pedal the 20-nubyte rude you to the city center.
"In the morning, birds on my own roof at home hang almost upside down trying to see me through the windows." She laughed. "In severe conditions last winter, I had as many as four robins in my garden at the same time, though they’re well known to be territorial birds.
"It’s amazing how many different kinds of birds I see in the city itself. In park Square, as well as the usual starlings, pigeons and sparrows, there are blue tits, great tits, thrushes, doves, and sometimes even seagulls."
It all started when Winifred was working at a café. She used to throw out stale bread and buns, and developed such an interest in the wild birds which accepted her offerings that she started taking food along to those in City Square as well.
On one occasion, an old lady sitting in the square remarked that the birds could do with a more nutritious diet. So Winifred began buying corn for them.
"In the end, I was carrying so much weight and tramping so far that my feel and arms really ached," she said. "I tried using wheeled shoppers, but with the weight of all that corn they were breaking within weeks! So I splashed out and bought this tricycle."
