BRINGING UP BABY: The 11 types of animal parent - new exhibition

Some parents are fussy and over-protective; others strict, pushing their youngsters to succeed; yet more are downright neglectful. And that’s just the humans.

For animals, where successful parenting is a matter of life or death, there are some curiously similar approaches to bringing up broods.

The different styles of parenting in the wild is the focus of a new art exhibition by wildlife artist Robert E Fuller in Thixendale this month.

The artist has been following the day-to-day lives of different animal families for his latest art show, which combines paintings, art prints, photographs and video clips.

“I’ve spent my life watching animals and birds in the wild and I think it’s fair to say that many share some of the same emotions when interacting with their young as we do – joy, playfulness, protectiveness and love,” he says. “This isn’t ‘anthropomorphism’- where people give animals’ human qualities – I just think animals need a lot more credit than they get.”

Robert Fuller with a painting of a mallard mother and her ducklings

To ensdure they get that credit, he has come up with 11 different animal parenting techniques, as recorded in his new exhibition:

1. Indulgent parents

Indulgent parents dote on their young, guiding them with gentle tolerance. Having watched countless fox vixens interacting with their cubs, Robert was inspired to try to capture their patience in paint for this exhibition.

“I remember watching one vixen raising five cubs on her own and even after a long day out hunting for their food she had time to settle amongst them to groom and play with them,” he said. His art collection includes a painting of a fox cub playfully pouncing on its mother’s tail.

Fox and cub by Robert Fuller

2. Laissez-faire parents

Laissez-faire is a French term meaning to let people do as they please. Applied to parenting the term refers to a permissive style in which parents avoid providing guidance and discipline.

Hares fall into this category after adapting a survival strategy based on the principal that it is harder for predators to spot individuals than a group. The adult females only visit their young once or twice a day, at dusk, and stay just long enough to let them suckle. Leverets are born ready for this solitary survival. Despite being just eight centimetres long at birth, they can walk and their eyes are open.

Independent: Leverets, by Robert Fuller

3. 'Tiger', or fiercely competitive, parents

Female weasels take on the role of parenting alone, but in their case the approach to parenting is a no-nonsense one with a focus on teaching survival skills. These tiny creatures are one of the UK's smallest mammals and the trick to their success is that they are formidable hunters. Robert has been watching wild weasels in his garden for years and has discovered that lessons in tenacity begin very young. “I once watched a female weasel take her kits hunting at a rat's nest. She stood back as one of them attempted to kill a young rat. It was a harsh first hunting trip,” he said.

4. Democratic parents

Birds that bring up their broods together display a healthy equality between the sexes. Among these are kingfishers. This year Robert has been watching a pair via cameras hidden inside their nest. The male shares the incubation of eggs and brooding of hatchlings by taking it in turns with the female. “This male is a very attentive parent and takes his role in helping to brood the chicks very seriously. In fact if anything he is the better parent,” he said.

Kingfishers just fledged, by Robert Fuller

5. Sociable extended families

Some species, like badgers, bring their broods up in large, extended families. These mammals live together in ancient setts and there is a strict hierarchical order to their clans, with a dominant boar that mates with a dominant sow. Younger sows help by babysitting the cubs whilst their mother goes out to forage.

6. Cautious parents

Parents in the wild face tough challenges and those that exercise caution can give their young a good chance of survival. Great crested grebes are endearingly protective. These water birds build floating nests to reduce the chances of predators reaching it from the shoreline and cover their eggs with twigs and leaves when they have to leave them. Once their chicks hatch the male and female take a chick each and carry them on their backs.

ATTENTIVE: Great Crested Grebe with chicks, by Robert Fuller

7. Pushy parents

Tawny owls make for very devoted parents, giving meticulous attention to each chick in turn when they feed or groom them. But in autumn as soon as the owlets become teenagers their parents turn on them and chase them out of their territories. At this time, you can hear the parent birds screeching at their young to shoo them away. The strategy can seem a little cruel, but these young need to be off to establish their own territory and start looking for a mate for the following breeding season.

8. Broody Dads

In some animal families it is the males that feel the need to multiply. One extraordinary male kestrel living in Robert’s garden was put to the test last year after he took on a mistress in addition to his long-standing partner and ended up having to care for two broods, a total of 10 chicks!

“I discovered this kestrel's double life after spotting him incubating a second female's eggs via a camera I had hidden in a nest in my garden. Despite the extra effort of having to hunt and feed two separate broods, he tried his best to bring all 10 chicks to the point of fledging,” he said.

9. Infidelity and Divorce

Infidelity does seemingly happen among animal pairs. In the animal world this tends to occur when 'the going is good', with perfect conditions of weather and availability of food. And it can have just as damning an effect on animal broods as it does for human children. “I once watched a curlew unable to concentrate on brooding because she had noticed her mate with another female,” said Robert.

Distracted? Curlew and chicks by Robert Fuller

10. Nature even has its foster parents

Robert has discovered that the nurturing instinct is so ingrained in owls that they will even take in another owl's chicks. In the past he has persuaded a pair of tawny owls to take on six chicks from a wildlife rehabilitation unit. He has also used the same technique to encourage barn owls to raise foundling owlets.

11. Surrogate parents

Reed warblers are hardworking parents, hunting tirelessly round the clock to find enough food to feed their chicks. This could be the reason that cuckoos choose reed warblers as surrogate parents for their own chicks. These tiny birds are among the species most likely to be duped into brooding a cuckoo's eggs and raising its chick – even though a cuckoo grows to be more than double the size of a reed warbler.

SURROGATE: Reed warbler and cuckoo by Robert Fuller

• Robert Fuller’s exhibition, Bringing Up Baby, runs at his gallery in Thixendale until June 25th. Look out for his paintings, prints, photographs and video footage of the animal parents he has studied. There will also be live links to kestrel, barn owl and tawny owl nests and nature and bird watching walks to attend.