Better than "doing it."

Pale Male & Lola in courtship mode
Photo by Lincoln Karim - November 20, 2006


Dear Marie,

Now that courtship seems to be in the air, I offer another euphemism for the ultimate act. I was recently reading an article about Darwin which contained a quote from an observation he made about a female bird “accepting the attentions” of a male who seemed attractive to her as the father of her future progeny. So maybe someone will want to report when Lola begins accepting Pale Male’s attentions. Personally, I like “a ruffling of the feathers” (Trollope), better.

Eleanor MacDonald
NYC

PS from Marie: Eleanor is a long time Central Park hawkwatcher, and also a Riverside Park hawkwatcher. She lives a block away from me, and we often exchange notes about our West Side redtails.