Stand Your Ground

When someone bigger threatens you, you could either quickly retreat or stand your ground. Depending on the circumstances, it may be wiser to just move away and avoid confrontation. The world is, however, full of deception, and many people and even countries have for many years relied on deception and deceit to fool and some to dominate others.

Here, I would attempt to show that deception is also a way of life among birds. This may occur among birds of the same species, but it is more apparent to humans when different species of birds are involved.

A very common bird in Singapore called a Javan Myna was standing on a streetlamp, a vantage point, happily observing the surroundings, perhaps looking for food.

Two Spotted doves decided that they would also like to use the lamppost, and to do this, they had to chase the Myna away. So, they probably thought that all they had to do was to go near to chase the Myna away. To be sure the Myna would fear them, they opened their wings and made themselves appear even bigger than they really are, a strategy not uncommon in human relationships. Bird watchers have observed such behaviour among birds when they confront birds of different species, although it is common with birds of the same species too. Many bird photographers have captured fascinating images of common crows threatening much bigger eagles or smaller birds like the black-winged kite.

The photographs above show that the smaller Myna is not intimidated by the bigger Spotted dove. The dove nevertheless tried its best to give the impression that it is much bigger than it is. This is a trait common in humans but surprisingly also practised by birds.

The doves finally flew away when they realized that they were not able to scare off the Myna. Such displays are common, and we seldom see them fighting in contact with each other.

What happened after the doves flew away? I observed that after some time, the Myna had just flown away. What did it gain by staying on the lamppost and fending off the doves? How would humans act in similar situations?

Does the law allow individuals to “STAND YOUR GROUND” allowing individuals to use force in self-defence? A few countries like the United States, the Czech Republic, Italy, Israel and South Africa have laws allowing the use of force in self-defence in some form or other – subject to certain restrictions and limits. The concept is, however, more clearly defined in the laws prevailing in the United States. (This information was sourced from ChatGPT in seconds on my iPad.)

The practice of standing your ground however has many risks. There is a need first of all to establish legal rights involving the need to prove to the courts that the actions were justified. Actions under the law could encourage more violence and be subject to minority racial biases.

Perhaps it is better to avoid psychological effects, both short-term and long-term, and just move away from a confrontational incident irrespective of the strengths of each side. I wonder whether birds can think along these lines to avoid confrontation. But as the photographs have shown, Mynas do not really care, and in the bird world, which we cannot fully understand, there are no laws that they have to follow and live by. They operate on the basis of survival of the stronger – or at least the impression that one is stronger no matter how big one appears to be.

I have a concluding photograph that shows a bird dead on a branch. Has it been killed by a bigger bird? Has it been shot by a hunter with a gun? What happened? This bird, a Garrulax in our Bird Paradise, a species of the Laughing Thrush, is merely resting on a branch in a position that gives the impression that it is dead when it is not.

The photographs in this article would not have been possible without cameras that can take continuous shots at high speed with many auto features. AI editing software can further enhance the images. Many talented bird photographers use such cameras to produce amazing action shots.

AI software, including ChatGPT, enabled me to quickly gather information, including views. We should be aware that AI apps like ChatGPT have built-in biases because they are ‘trained’ by information not sourced in many languages. Mainstream media, which probably provides most of the information, is itself biased.