do any birds mate for life

When it comes to love and marriage, bird mating habits aren’t much different than people. Birds meet and then carry on a courtship that includes dinner dates, dancing and just hanging out together. Birds, especially males, sing, show off a lot and wear flashy adornments just to impress females. Then if the two birds like each other, they become a pair, build a nest, raise youngsters, school them and send them off to form their own families. Also like people, pairs are not always faithful and will have flings with individuals other than their own mates. If the marriage doesn’t result in raising young, the pair may “divorce”, remarry and try again. Discover the monogamous birds that mate for life.

Birds That Mate for LifeIt’s fairly rare to find monogamous birds that remain together “until death do us part,” a fact not realized until pretty recently. Until the development of DNA fingerprinting techniques in the 1980s, most people thought birds faithfully mated for life, or at least for the season. Using DNA, scientists have produced some shocking discoveries. Most birds are far from monogamous.Most birds do not mate for life, and most of those that do aren’t quite as faithful as we’d like to think. Over 92 percent of all bird species form a pair bond and stay together for at least part of the nesting cycle. Yet DNA tests of baby birds have shown that in over 75 percent of these species, some birds have mated with one or more birds other than their “social mate.”These

The highly endangered California condor, which is listed on Audubon’s Watchlist, takes six to eight years to reach sexual maturity. After mating, the birds remain together for years, if not forever. Aerial displays guide the pairs to multiple nest locations during courtship, which is similar to looking for a possible place to call home. Naturally, the female bird has the last say regarding the location of the birds’ nests.

These pigeon-sized “clowns of the sea” wait until they are three to six years old to start breeding. But once they do, Atlantic Puffins remain with their mates for life, returning to the same burrow every season, sharing parental and egg-incubation responsibilities, and even engaging in a behavior known as billing, in which the birds stroke each other’s beaks. Visit Project Puffin for additional excellent details regarding Audubon’s conservation efforts to save Atlantic Puffins.

One egg is the average clutch size. Fun fact: puffins can reach speeds of up to 55 mph by flapping their wings 400 times per minute.

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Yes, even Black Vultures stick together. According to Birds of North America online, “one bird, presumed to be male, chases a presumed female through the air and periodically dives at her” as part of the mating ritual. They actually become so close that they spend the entire year together, not just the breeding season.

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