Life is ‘nasty, brutish and short’ or so said Thomas Hobbes, a poet and philosopher in 1651. Nature is full of wonders but it’s true that for some, life is indeed brutish and short. For the young, the weak and the inexperienced, nature has its dangers.
Many species of bird will fight bill and claw to protect their young and their families from mortal dangers. Crows will act together or even alone against a much larger adversary. White-rumped vultures are huge creatures weighing up to 7.5 kg, more than ten times the weight of an American crow and yet a single persistent and courageous crow will drive it away .
Whenever we incubate some bright new idea or develop a new product it’s unfortunately likely that a competitor will try to either steal it or attack it. Why? Successful innovation is a threat to the existing order. If a competitor is feeding off scraps and can’t innovate themselves then appropriating or destroying the threat is the only option.
For the courageous corbeau, as we shall see in this blog category, there are many ways to fend off the vultures.
An introduction to Thomas Hobbes can be found on Wikipedia and the RSPB has an interesting account of small birds mobbing dangerous predators.