The season of gift giving

Driving along a muddy track I noticed a lilac-breasted roller perched in a tree with something odd in its beak. I reversed back to see what it was, thinking it might be a little snake, and indeed it was. This was quite unusual, but as I watched him I was surprised that he didn’t try to swallow it. Nearby was another lilac-breasted roller, and it soon dawned on me what was happening. It’s the time of year when insects and other prey are abundant, and birds feast on the prey to bulk up, mate, lay eggs, incubate them, and feed the hungry chicks. This male roller was trying to woo a female to mate with him by bringing her what is known as a “nuptial gift”.

Nuptial gift giving is when the male presents the female with a nutritious morsel during courtship and mating. Birds do it, as do many insects, including spiders, snails, earthworms and even squid. Mammals such as bonobos do it – and dare I say humans too. The nuptial gifts are to convince the female to mate with the male. It’s most common that the gifts have a nutritional value, so the female benefits. Sometimes birds and animals have been known to give gifts just to please the recipient – like a crow giving his intended something that sparkles and shines.

But all was not going well for our character in his technicoloured dream coat. He jumped around, trying to squawk with the snake in his beak, and flapped around the female, desperately trying to entice her to accept and eat his gift. She was having none of it. The more he tried the more she rejected his advances and flew short distances away, ignoring him. It seemed that snakes were not her thing. If I were being anthropomorphic it was as if she were saying, “No, Joseph, I’ve told you a hundred times – I do not like snakes! Get it away from me!”

Eventually he got the message and flew off. My heart went out to him. However, he flew back a few minutes later with the biggest spider I have ever seen. I held my breath.

He edged along the branch until he was next to the female, and then literally tried to stuff it down her throat. She remained closed-beaked. He persisted and tried every tack. He even rearranged the arachnid to try and improve his presentation. Her reaction was along the lines of, “What part of this do you not understand? I do not like snakes. I do not like spiders. Go away!” He was crestfallen. She was unflappable.

In the spider world of gift giving it has been observed that sometimes male spiders try to trick female spiders by wrapping up low-quality prey in silk, or even paltry half-consumed morsels. While the female is busy unwrapping what she thinks is a thoughtful gift, he'll mate with her and run off before she realises. One study found that as many as 70% of gifts given by a certain species of spider are fake. But this was not the case with our male lilac-breasted roller – these were generous gifts, well presented.

I left the scene in pursuit of a sundowner after he was rejected for the second time. I suspect he went by the mantra of, “Rejection isn’t failure. Failure is giving up.” It was too traumatic to watch and I worried he might return with a scorpion.