Comments on: Proverbial

By: Larry Ayers

Larry Ayers — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 18:36:40 +0000

“As patience to a predator, so is imagination to the prey. The field mouse that thinks, â€œIt’s only rainâ€? won’t live to bear another litter.”

Is that yours, Dave? A nice and pithy apothegm!

By: Nathan

Nathan — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 08:01:03 +0000

About the bats–it’s a long story–as humans have so many cultures within just one species, certainly bats also have many cultures within their many species. I’ve witnessed behavior that made sense to me as “scaring humans for fun,” but I will henceforth resist the urge to stereotype or paint all bats with the same brush.

By: Dave

Dave — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 10:18:50 +0000

Oh yes. There are certain species that appoint themselves to a guardian role. Here, the black-capped chickadees (a kind of tit) are a great one for that, and studies have shown than many other species of birds understand the vocubulary of chickadee warnings.

By: Lucy

Lucy — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 05:32:47 +0000

I like the birds scolding one; I often think how glad the other birds must be of the swallows, because they are such vigilant scolders of birds of prey, and always see them first. Our dog has learned to understand blackbird language, when one of them is scolding about a cat in the garden she’s up and out to see it off!

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 20:40:57 +0000

I’ll believe that of rats and cats, but not of bats.

By: Nathan

Nathan — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 19:04:11 +0000

A friend of mine was sleeping in the hammock in the jungle hut we were all sharing, and a rat ran down the rope and ran across his face, waking him up before it ran away. From his description, I had the impression that the rat did it purely for the fun of it. I firmly believe that bats also sometimes try to freak people out, just because it’s easy and fun to.

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 11:57:45 +0000

They like threading mazes, I guess.

By: Nathan

Nathan — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 11:09:20 +0000

Nothing delights a rat more than running over a sleeping person’s face.

By: Dave

Dave — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 15:53:12 +0000

Hi JLB, glad you liked. When the birds scold, the mice can relax because now they know where the predator is – its cover is ruined. The rain can go back to being rain, and not little cat feet.

By: JLB

JLB — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 12:59:20 +0000

Very appropriate with all the thunderstorms of late… I especially like “When the birds start scolding, the mice relax.”… the birds always make it clear when the rain is about to begin, and when the storm has finally passed.