Cottage Life

When Nature Swipes Right

“Single male, handsome and hormonal, seeks hot female for sex and babies. Am a real animal. Are U?” If cottage-country critters could write a “want” ad in mating season, this would be their come-on line. But wild dudes, from birds and mammals to insects and fish, have their own evocative ways of communicating their desire to get it on and pass their genes along. They must prove their superiority as a reproductive partner through courtship ploys that are amazingly varied, creative, and sometimes familiar in the universal game of persuading the girl to fall for the guy…

Dress to Impress

Many male birds gussy up their plumage during breeding season, but few as dramatically as the commonly seen blackpoll warbler, says Christian Artuso, the Manitoba program manager for Bird Studies Canada. A drab

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