Originally Posted by
sevristh
And how well do those partnerships work for you without food or producing slips? You can romanticize it if you want, but it's an example of an opportunistic predator taking advantage of a good thing.
And that is why it's called anthropomorphizing. You are trying to overlay your feelings onto the bird. I think that while they do establish pair bonds that can last through the year, this is also a thing of convenience or opportunity. What happens if you take one of those birds away, even while on chicks? The other one gets a new mate asap. They don't spend time pining or crying or anything else. It's instinct, not love.