Collaboration lessons from Nature
Posted by Prashant - 17/11/09 at 01:11:17 pmWilliam Wordsworth once said “Let Nature be your teacher”. If you care to look, its amazing how nature always has an easy way of delivering the message across. With the dawn of the Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 tools and technologies and increased pressure on bottomline, concept of collaboration and how its a win-win situation for all has taken the center stage in the management circles these days. Now the question is what is the best way to explain this “Collaboration” and “win-win” situation to say a layman? Apparently nature has this story of Honey guide bird and the nomadic Boran people of Kenya which beautifully elucidates how working together can be a very rewarding situation for all the parties involved.
Across the bushlands of northern Kenya, a remarkable example of cooperation
between bird and man can be found, operating today much as it has for untold centuries.2
This is the territory of the Boran, a nomadic tribe who continue to subsist through hunting
and gathering. For as long as they can remember, the Boran have been taking advantage
of the helpful behavior of a bird known as the greater honeyguide (Indicator indicator),
which—as its name implies—is widely renowned as a guide towards choice deposits of
honey.
By nature the honeyguide displays a great fondness for beeswax and bee larvae.
Inasmuch as beehives are virtually inaccessible to these birds and well protected by the
bees (Apis mellifira) themselves—the colonies are typically located in large trees, rock
crevices or termite mounds—the honeyguide requires the aid of man in order to pillage
the honey-cache. As the natives tell it—and now confirmed by the study of Isack and
Reyer—they summon the honeyguide to the campsite by emitting a specific, penetrating
whistle which can be heard from a distance of over one kilometer.3 Upon hearing the
whistle, the bird responds by flying towards the campsite of the Boran, whereupon it
announces itself by flying close to the humans and moving restlessly amongst
conspicuous perches in the trees, all the while emitting a very characteristic call (tirr-tirrtirr-
tirr). Once it has gained the attention of a potential honey-gatherer, the bird then
proceeds to guide him in a fairly direct manner to the site of the bee-colony, the latter of
which may be several kilometers away. Alternately appearing and disappearing, the bird
periodically returns to check on the humans, as if to make sure that they are still
following, such returns becoming more frequent and agitated as the two parties near the
hive. The Boran honey gatherers, in turn, whistle and bang sticks while following the
bird to maintain its attention and announce their position. According to professional
honey gatherers, “through its guiding pattern, the bird informs them about the direction
of, the distance to, and their arrival at the colony.”
Upon arriving at the site of the bees’ nest, the honeyguide perches near it and emits a
very characteristic “indication” call. By all accounts, this call differs markedly from the
guiding call. Should the Boran experience difficulty in locating the colony, the bird
swoops down and circles it as if to further clarify the precise location of the nest. Once
the nest is found and its thick walls breached, the Boran plunder the honeycombs, always
leaving a few select morsels behind for the honeyguide.
(Source)
Simply awesome isn’t it? If time is not a constraint then the whole article(source) is worth reading. Apart from the collaboration message, you actually start to wonder as to why and how, animals/birds sometimes display such strange behavior. Talking of strange behavior, check this video;
Blame the behavior of Leapord on natal scents of the baby Baboon or maternal instincts of the leapord itself, such instances provide lots of points to ponder upon.
1 Comment »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Leave a comment
All content copyright Prashant Durgadmath.
Theme : GimpStyle Theme
T-boran???????…
T-boran???????…
Trackback by espiritu — November 18, 2009 #