Are Birds Bisexual?
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I don’t know if all birds are bisexual but this story definitely caught my attention. It’s the story of Thomas the goose and Henry the black swan (who people originally thought was Henrietta but it turns out it’s really hard to sex a bird in many cases and they were wrong). The story takes place in New Zealand.
Henry (formerly known as Henrietta) got stuck where he was due to an illness or injury. He and Thomas became close friends and hung out together all the time. After some time, another black swan came along who proved to be a female when she had some babies. That’s when they also found out the original Henrietta was actually a boy and renamed him Henry.
At first, Thomas was quite jealous and had a hard time with new relationship dynamics but as soon as Henry and Henrietta had babies, Thomas’s heart was softened and his jealousy disappeared. Henry and Thomas’s love was tight and Thomas continued to be a close member of the family, often caring for Henry and (the new) Henrietta’s babies. Henry and Henrietta had 68 babies over the course of their relationship and Thomas was there for all of it. He even taught some of the babies to fly.
Henry died in 2009 and not too long after that Henrietta flew off with another bird. Thomas eventually found a female partner and they had 10 babies together. He didn’t really get to be a father to his babies because another goose stole them. This is a common act among geese and I always thought it was for kinder reasons but apparently geese will sometimes do this to pad their area with the new babies on the outside of their babies-by-birth so if a predator comes along, they’ll attack the kidnapped babies first.
**I’m so sorry if that ruins this story for you but it’s an interesting detail I didn’t feel right leave out.**
Anyway, Thomas lived to be almost 40 which is a long time for geese. He was an icon in his area and people loved him. If you’d like to see pics of the family or read more, check out the link below.
P.S. A little bonus info…homosexuality is very common throughout the animal kingdom but only some mate for life.