This Canadian goose reoccupies the same nest here in town each year. It’s not uncommon, I find. She is dedicated, rooted to her spot and extremely territorial. Understandable, she’s a mama defending her young to be. There we go again, anthropomorphizing animals using words like “dedicated” and “defending” with connotations of personal will and emotion. But, how much do we understand of the neuroscience of animals and what percentage of their instinct is emotion? What part genetic programming versus want, need, desire, choice? Conversely, how much of us is a sense of self and not DNA propelling us through time and circumstance?
The good is from conscious choice; the bad is clearly DNA.
Did you know loons mate for life, and together choose a lifetime nest? If that nest is destroyed they will never mate again. They also don’t have hollow bones, so they’re strange anyway, but as far as anthropomorphizing goes, perhaps we are like the animals, not the other way around.