February brings Valentine's Day and thoughts of romance and love that will hopefully lead, if they haven't already, to a long-lasting or, even better, lifelong, relationship with the person of your dreams.

Monogamy - the act of being faithful to one mate - is experienced among certain species of wildlife and birds, as well as humans, although the degree to which they enjoy the romantic bliss that human's dream of is open to debate. According to Erlich, Dobkin and Wheye, authors of The Birder's Handbook, a handy field guide packed full of information about avian behavior, only ten percent of all bird species are not monogamous, which means that almost all of them are.

We have to be careful not to attach human values to animal activities, of course, since wild animals and birds participate in the act of procreation, at least to the extent that we understand it, for the primary if not the sole reason of perpetuating the species.

Monogamy, therefore, has more than one connotation. As Erlich et al. points out, it can mean a bond that "last(s) for a single nesting (House Wrens), an entire breeding season (most bird species, including most passerines), several successive breeding seasons (observed in some pairs of American Robins, Tree Swallows, Mourning Doves, etc.), or life (albatrosses, petrels, swans, geese, eagles, and some owls and parrots)."

The male of the monogamous pair or "pair bond" often helps to raise the young to varying degrees. Studies have shown that the responsibility of the males in some species is limited to guarding the nest site, while others bring food to the female, and a few, like egrets, herons and some woodpeckers not only bring home the bacon but also help hatch the small fry.

Some birds lay eggs in the nests of other birds of the same species to increase the size of their clutch without having to do the work of incubating the eggs and caring for the young. DNA sampling has revealed this activity occurs fairly regularly in some species. Genetic studies of Eastern Bluebirds, a monogamous species, also indicated a certain level of infidelity in the species.

While monogamy is common among birds, few four-legged creatures share the trait. According to Sally Carrighar, author of Wild Heritage, "Wolves, coyotes and foxes are believed to be truly and permanently monogamous. After the breeding season, the sexual needs of the mates for each other recedes in both but the bond between them does not dissolve. The pairs live in the same den and, at the time when the young are born, the male brings food to the mother. Later, he helps to guard, teach and feed the young. Beavers, too, are monogamous, also chinchillas and probably others among the wild mammals."

In Walker's Mammals of the World, Ronald Nowak and John Paradiso mention that a number of male coyotes may vie for a female's attention but "she eventually seems to pick one for a lasting relationship," that includes hunting and living together "sometimes for years." A female red fox (vixen), they note, may "mate with several males, but later establishes a partnership with just one of them." Beavers, too, they agree, are "apparently" monogamous, since there is generally only one breeding female in a colony of four to eight animals, which consists of "a breeding pair of adults and the young of two years." Wolves may also "mate for life," they write.

However much we may want to romanticize the notion of monogamy in animals, they do what they have to do to survive, including practicing polygyny (a male mating with two or more females) or promiscuity ("mating without forming pair bonds"), according to Erlich et al.. These practices may help to strengthen the gene pool.

Perhaps one of the species best known for monogamy is the swan. Not only do they mate for life, but they make a great effort to maintain their bond through an activity called a "triumph ceremony" in which both the male and female engage in "head movements, wing lifting and calling, typically after they have repulsed an intruder," writes Dr. Christopher Perrins in Birds: Their Life, Their Ways, Their World.

I had an opportunity to observe a pair of mute swans that took up residence on a cranberry bog irrigation pond that I ran past nearly every morning for about ten years. The two floated in graceful elegance, as only swans can do, in the pond's shallow water in the warm months, cracked through the thin ice with their massive breasts as it began to form in the fall and nestled in the reeds on the pond's edge during the coldest periods. In the spring, the female retreated to a nest well hidden in the reeds for about a month while the male patrolled the pond's perimeter, keeping a watchful eye out for Canada geese, which were prevalent in our wetland-rich area. On some mornings, I watched in awe as the male swam fiercely toward an offending goose, huge wings spread in stiff curves, long neck extended. If the goose wandered too close, the swan spread his wings and began to flap with an explosion of sound, wing tips smacking the water as he skidded across the surface toward the startled and apparently intimidated intruder. The tactic worked like a charm, but I often wondered how the huge bird managed to consume enough calories to sustain himself during his ceaseless and energetic vigil.

After about a month, the female would emerge with five or six cygnets (baby swans), and the family spent their days paddling and swimming for food, proud papa in the front, followed by the downy babes and regal mama taking up the rear.

I looked forward to watching the babies grow but, invariably, they would disappear one-by-one, most likely snatched up by the hungry snapping turtles that also made the pond their home. In all those years, I only saw one survive the summer. This sad fact seems to corroborate Dr. Perrins' note that about 40 percent of a mute swan's clutch of about six eggs will hatch and only half of those will live to the age when they begin to fly. Fewer than 25 percent of the young that reach flying age reach breeding age (4 years), he wrote. Those that do reach maturity will live an average of five years, with about 18 percent dying each year.

One winter, the adult swans disappeared, too. When they did not return in the spring, I thought they had gone forever. Then, while on a morning run, I heard the familiar whirring of huge wings overhead and, looking up, saw a single swan flying just over my head. It circled and alighted on the pond. It seemed smaller than either of the two I had been watching, and I wondered if it was the single cygnet that had grown to adulthood, or perhaps, was one of the two that had lost its mate and had returned in the hope of finding it.

Each day the bird stayed my mood grew gloomier. A great sense of loneliness filled me as I watched its solitary circling, its feet barely breaking the surface of the still water. It reminded me of the loss of my own life partner through divorce several years before and emotions I thought I had buried rose to the surface and transformed into empathy for the swan. Then, one day, I rounded the corner of the road leading to the bog and saw that the pond was empty. My depression dissipated with the silly hope that he found the girl of his dreams somewhere and that they and all of their cygnets will live happily ever after. (So much for not placing human values on animals.)

Happy Valentine's Day.

You can email Karen at karen@lakeshoreguardian.com.