In the spring of the year I look forward to the chance to observe and photograph the family of Canada geese that nests by our home. In such close proximity it becomes easier to tell them apart, identify the smaller family groups and other relationships. It is interesting to me, for example, that three or four families cooperate in swimming groups and ‘learning to fly’ sessions — but get really UGLY with one another when there’s a possibility of extra food.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

I really enjoy observing and learning from all kinds of families… regardless of the species!<\/p>\n

For example, did you know that Mexican free-tailed bats are so connected to their babies that they consistently find and nurse their own young? That’s probably not all that impressive until you discover that this particular type of bat lives in enormous colonies, made up of millions of bats… living in close quarters. Super close quarters — of up to 500 per square foot! <\/p>\n

My guess is that oysters are not so closely bonded: a female oyster has the ability to produce more than 100 million young ones over her lifetime. Yikes!<\/p>\n

For more Mother’s Day fun check out Special and Unusual Moms<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With Mother’s Day around the corner, remember: Moms with wings and feathers can teach us something about family life — if we want to have fun and learn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[153,182,338],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-8198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-parenting","tag-family-life","tag-fun","tag-mothers-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8198\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8198"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=8198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}