All Knowledge is somewhere on my friends list

[andrewducker]

Two questions:
1) Do swans have friends?
Or rather, do birds have friends? I know that some mate for life, so they can clearly tell the difference between each other - but do swans actually have 'buddies' that they will spend more time with, help out, etc? Do birds even _need_ helping out? Or are birds rugged individualists?

2) Plot Recognition
I recently finished "Instructions for Living Someone Else's Life" - which had the plotline "Person goes out drinking in 1988, aged 25, wakes up in 2006, aged 46, married, with a terrible job, etc. He then tries to deal with the fact that life hasn't gone how he thought it would, and deal with this strange world he's woken up in, or find a way back home." Which is kind-of Life On Mars in reverse, but it strikes me as such an obvious plot that someone must have done it before - but I can't think of _where_. Anyone?

Comments

[erindubitably.livejournal.com]

Re #2: Thirteen Going on Thirty? And I think that taught us all that how to deal with that situation is to do the Thriller dance.

[andrewducker]

Is that one of the ones where someone ages instantly? Or swaps bodies (like Vice Versa)? Because this is someone actually waking up in the "future", with a wife, job, etc. and seeing how their choices worked out for them.

[erindubitably.livejournal.com]

S'far as I remember, a girl makes a wish on her 13th birthday and wakes up the next morning as herself at 30, complete with stressful job and jerky boyfriend. Things aren't what she imagined her life would be, and she has to 'fix' the choices she made along the way. And then something else happens, I don't know what, I think she goes back to being 13 at the end or something.

[andrewducker]

Aha! Yup, having checked the synopsis, this sounds certainly close enough!

Cheers!

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

also kinda, Tom Hanks' Big - which came decades before Freaky Friday..

[andrewducker]

Not bad - although it doesn't put him in his own future.

[akicif.livejournal.com]

Wasn't Freaky Friday a remake of an older Children's Film Foundation (? or similar - sure I remember Hayley Mills in it) film?

[aliiis.livejournal.com]

Yes! Thanks, this is what I was thinking of - my first thought was Freaky Friday, which was a book I read when I was about that age, but actually in that one she swaps bodies with her mum for a day. I think. But yeah, 13 going on 30 (which I have seen for reasons) or Big are both along the same lines.

I had a dream about a really gigantic moth!

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

ah right! you said Big!!

[shannon_a]

Oddly enough, it sounds like a plot that a scam artist in the US tried to patent a couple of years ago:
http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2005/11/emw303435.htm

[andrewducker]

Cheers!

I assume they didn't get away with it.

[shannon_a]

As far as I know, the patent office hasn't returned a decision. It typically takes 5 or 6 years from my recollection.

It's pretty unlikely to fly, especially since it got enough attention that Hollywood studios have logged statements against it.

[laserboy.livejournal.com]

Depends on the species I suppose and what will get the genes (or closely related genes) passed on. Behavioural ecology and all that.

[likeneontubing.livejournal.com]

i reckon they're all rugged individualists. they'll look after their own/related genes as you say, but i've never seen them being matey after that.

anything to take the bread from each others mouths really.

[trav28.livejournal.com]

Q2) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/

[andrewducker]

Nope, he wakes up with his life still ongoing. It's as if 18 years of memory have been snipped out. I'll update the entry.

[trav28.livejournal.com]

aha, this was the closest I could think of (apart from the Dead Zone). I guess Life on Mars did it so well we don't need another narrative?

there was that Sci Fi Channel thing about the people frozen on the train I guess but all those texts seem more about coping with the situation as opposed to trying to restore the equilibrium.

I do remember a conversation with Nick Royle at a party way back (1991?) about a book he was working on about an urban legend concerning some kind of dimensional rift within a brick wall. The idea was that the protagonist who was unable to cope with his existence heard that this wall was a portal and if he ran hard and fast into the brick wall it would transport him back in time....not sure if Nick ever wrote that story but it sounded like a good one.

[red-phil.livejournal.com]

That sci-fi thing would probably be 'The Last Train' an old BBC Sci Fi mini series

[flickgc.livejournal.com]

Not sure about friends, as such, but it's not uncommon for us to see adolescent moorhens along the canal, helping to feed newly hatched ones that are (presumably) their younger siblings.

[andrewducker]

So, they definitely recognise bonds of family. That's a step in the right direction. Cheers!

[laserboy.livejournal.com]

Don't ignore the role of imprinting in this.

Drive-by comment

[kayre]

(saw this on friendsfriends)

Canada geese often form extended families to raise their young; within those families I often see the adult females hanging out together.

I've also seen adolescent ducks hanging out together; most often two males, but in one case two males and a female (they had no young so I don't think she was a mate). Generally I suspect these groups or pairs are broodmates.

This summer the downy woodpeckers behind my house raised two babies and then a third. They're all out of the nest now but one of the babies hangs out with one of the older siblings.

Re: Drive-by comment

[henriksdal.livejournal.com]

Wwwwait... you can tell sexes of Canada geese apart?! Crikey, I thought I was doing well being able to differentiate Herring gull male and females!

Re: Drive-by comment

[kayre]

By behavior only, so it's unreliable-- while males do help with parental care, in these large groups the males are likely to be standing guard, and the females spending more time among the goslings. So perhaps I should just say that it's common to see more than two adults hanging out together among the goslings.

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

Yeh I constantly see tribes of duck single mums sharing out the child care duties - they practically have a creche!

[henriksdal.livejournal.com]

Depends - "birds" are as diverse as "mammals" so you can't really generalise. Here's a fun example to start with:

Where current pollution is believed to be the cause of a massive decline in the proportion of males in animal populations (and it's found in _everything_) female nesting gulls in California (well, where else) have been seen to share a nest. There's not enough males for one each, so they both mate with any male they can find, both lay in one nest, and both females help raise all of the young in their nest - they can't tell which is theirs, after all. In this way the chicks have the benefit of two parents. That's pretty awesome.

Being genetically related is usually the only way a bird will help out another bird (the moorhens below - are they older young from a brood earlier this season? They may not have fledged fully yet and still be partially relying on adults who have even more young). The exception to this is in colonial nesting species, usually seabirds, who are particularly vulnerable to predators when incubating. A big colony gives safety in numbers, so they have to _not_ see each other as competition for food during this time.

I spose it's theoretically possible that siblings of sociable species hang out together once they've fledged - thinking of swans - but not provable.

Long distance migratory species are another possible, if you've ever seen how Swallows, swifts and martens behave at this time of year. Terns do a similar thing too, gathering in huge groups, flying about and chattering away for a few days before they all leave at the same time. This pre-flight fun is presumably to strengthen social bonds so that the majority survive the trip to the Med/sub-saharan Africa/South America/South Africa/Antarctica.

I could go on? If you _really_ want (and I may charge for this service) I can look up scientific papers for all of these - certainly searching for lesbian seagulls might get you the first story ;)

[henriksdal.livejournal.com]

tut, 4th paragraph "not provable" should be "I've not read a paper where this has been proved"

[henriksdal.livejournal.com]

Also, next time someone asks a question about birds I'm just going to answer "yes" or "no"

[andrewducker]

I love the way you complain about this _and_ say that birds don't help birds they aren't genetically related to!

[sterlingspider.livejournal.com]

"I spose it's theoretically possible that siblings of sociable species hang out together once they've fledged - thinking of swans - but not provable.

Theres a species of small African cliff dwelling type birds which stay together in family groups within the flock. I will attempt to remember the name.

[deililly.livejournal.com]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0218967/ ?

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Just a guess, but check on crows. They have hobbies (impractical things like sliding down gilded domes in Russia) that individuals do now and then for 15 minutes at a time, so they presumably have the resources to spare for friendship if they want it.

[heyokish.livejournal.com]

anecdotal, so, not very scientific...but I've seen swans baby-sitting (cygnet sitting, whatever), temporarily gaining 2 or 3 extra little fuzzballs for a while.