hummingbirds

I'm sitting here this nice temperate morning on the patio. Refilled the hummingbird feeder and a few hummingbirds have stopped by for some drinks. Larger and louder than most of the hummingbirds I've seen around, three of them begin to play out an interesting scene. I can't tell for sure, but it appears that two are male and one is female. The males have more flamboyant colors and attitudes to match. One male scouts the area, then lands and takes a few nourishing drinks of the sugary solution. He then lands on a nearby branch and acts like he's guarding the food. The other male flies up and they have a high speed encounter - tough to tell what's going on - who wins, etc... From the human perspective it's hard not to marvel at the speed and power of these little creatures, compared to whom even gravity seems to move slow. The males seem to be trying to impress the female, who comes by to drink a couple times as well.

Birds seem to do well with the plain looking females and colorful, attractive males. What would it be like if humans were the same way? Seems like human females are attractive as well as picky and increasingly self-sufficient. I used to be in sync with the feminist ideas of maintaining independence from men. However, what if girls, given a choice, aren't interested in keeping the same guy around? That doesn't seem like the best option for raising a family either...

Maybe monogamy isn't built into our DNA. Seems chimpanzees and bonobos (our closest primate relatives) have significantly more sex than modern day humans, and neither of them practice monogamy.

Thinking of life goals lately... seems that lately I have the opportunity or the mandate to re-evaluate what I want out of life. I know I'd like to be free of the 40 hour work week. I know I love to develop software. I was thinking that I wanted to start a family. Perhaps the last is in contradiction with the first two, and that's why it's not happening, because I need more progress on the first two before embarking on that adventure.