Parent birds give many gifts to their children—a nest to grow up in, warmth, food, and tutoring in how to fly, to find food, and to avoid predators. But adult birds give gifts to each other, too. Notably, adult male birds give gifts to females to attract them. To charm a female, a male Osprey holds a fish in his claws and flies around in a kind of dance while screaming. (Men, don’t try this at home!) Other bird species take equally intriguing approaches to grown-up gift-giving.

Not only Osprey, but also males of other species such as Belted Kingfishers, Northern Cardinals, Blue Jays, Caspian Terns, and Cedar Waxwings offer gifts of food to females during courtship.

Here a male Caspian Tern offers a fish to a female. It’s a sign to her that he’d be good at feeding her later when she’s on her nest. It also likely plumps her up for successful egg production.

When she’s keeping eggs warm on the nest—a shallow depression in the sand lined with dried vegetation—the male continues to bring her meals.

In the case of Cedar Waxwings, the male’s gift of food to a female is accompanied by ritualized behavior. He offers her an insect, fruit, or flower petal. She accepts it, then hops away from him— only to return and give the treat BACK to him.

At this stage an observer might think she’s a picky eater. But continuing to watch the two birds leads to a different conclusion.

The male waxwing passes the treat to the female again, and again she moves away, then hops back to him, and once more gives back the gift. They repeat this process several times. When they’ve had enough of this dance, it turns out she’s not such a picky eater after all: she’s usually the one who eats the treat.

But food isn’t the only type of gift that male birds give to females during courtship. Eastern Bluebird males, for example, find natural cavities or human-built nest boxes and then carry nesting material in and out of the hole to attract a female’s attention.

After the male has successfully attracted a female with a suitable nesting site, she’s the one who actually builds the nest.

House Wren males take the attract-her-with-a-home approach to the next level: the male builds several rudimentary, sloppy nests. Then, singing the whole time, he takes an interested female around to inspect each one. If she likes one of the sites, she’ll accept him as her partner and get to work making the nest much, much better. A parallel behavior among human males would be constructing a series of tents and then singing opera to your girlfriend as you take her around to examine each of them, crossing your fingers that she’ll say yes to one, and to you. This puts the courtship behavior of male birds in perspective: it’s hard work! But female birds are also working very hard, because the human equivalent would be that your girlfriend takes down the tent at her chosen site and builds a whole cabin!

Male and female birds also give each other the gifts of loyalty and protection. Mating for life is the norm for many bird species that nest in Pennsylvania, including Bald Eagles, Osprey, Great Horned Owls, American Barn Owls, Barred Owls, Canada Geese, Northern Cardinals, Eastern Bluebirds, Pileated Woodpeckers, and Black Vultures.

Commitment to a partner can involve frequent communication. Northern Cardinal pairs, for example, stay in contact with each other throughout the day with little “chip” calls, often every few seconds. These calls indicate to each other where they are, and further communication can alert the partner to a good food source. Although birds are certainly not people, this behavior sounds like texting your partner to ask them to meet you at a restaurant for dinner. In fact, sharing food information with kin has ancient roots across the animal kingdom.

In his beautiful What the Robin Knows, which we reviewed here, author Jon Young recounts a time when, sitting very quietly, he observed a further act of devotion among Northern Cardinals. The pair had been chipping back and forth, but suddenly the female went silent. The male called to her more urgently, but still no answer. Then, in a flash, the male swooped towards his mate, where a Sharp-shinned Hawk was about to capture her (she had presumably gone silent in the hopes of not being noticed). The male put his own body between the body of the “Sharpie” and his mate, which distracted and confused the Sharpie enough that both cardinals just managed to escape. The risk that the male cardinal took—well, THAT was a gift if ever there was one!

Christine M. Du Bois, Coordinator of the Lansdowne Bird Town and editor of Bird Beat

Photo credits:

Caspian Tern courtship, by Leo “Oystercatcher,” licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Caspian Tern male bringing food to nest (adapted), by David Craig “Caspian Tern,” licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
Cedar Waxwings, by Wildreturn, licensed under CC BY 2.0
Eastern Bluebirds by Paul Danese, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
Northern Cardinals by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Midwest Region, public domain