Opportunity and Opportunism

 I'm posting the photos first in order to reserve this space and jog my memory for a narrative that will follow.  Maybe it's the warmer weather, or maybe it's just a collision of my various sources of recent reading, but I'm finding (or imagining?) connections that I will try to explain later.  First, there's a disturbing (to me) piece in today's New York Times titled "American Evangelicals fuel Uganda's anti-L.G.B.T. crusade."  Then there's an article in Cornell Ornithology Lab's newsletter titled "The Bold and the Bashfull."  Finally, my early a.m. photos of a raven (actually, there were 3, but only one stayed).  These items have caused me to explore the idea of "opportunism" both in nature and in human society, which, more and more, I'm beginning to see as one.  Stay tuned.  Maybe look up some of these items then enter the dialogue.

Sat. evening followup: The bird study mentioned above involved placing identical feeders in two different settings, one out in the open and the other more sheltered.  It turns out some of the birds (same species) were risk takers and chose the feeder out in the open and tended to be aggressive in their pursuit of food.  They were more likely to be caught by predators, but, until that happened, they tended to be better fed.  The "bashful" birds tended to choose the feeder under cover.  They were 'safer' but were more likely to go hungry.  So, the three Ravens in my 'study' probably consisted of one bold and two bashful.  I have to resist the temptation to extrapolate this study to humans. 
The NYT article and accompanying video were unnerving.  The evangelicals in supporting an atmosphere that was already extremely hostile to homosexuality spoke in the same language of Hitler's earliest followers, that is, the language of intending to take over the world!  The language of smug self-righteousness.  I'm being redundant.  Very large amounts of money from across the USA were targeting Uganda and other African countries as being ripe for the spread of their particular brand of Christianity.  Too many fanatics on the loose!  Not good for the future. 
My last comments have to do with opportunism.  Certain animals seem to be flexible enough in their habits that they can adapt to a wide variety of conditions under pressure.  Ravens, for example, and pigeons and rats seem to be able to eat most anything when they choose to live in close association with humans.  I'm used to calling them opportunistic.  When I looked up the word, nearly every source gave it very bad connotations, essentially meaning 'taking advantage of unexpected opportunities without regard for the effects on others."  In other words, selfishness.  I've read a lot about the presence of altruism in humans and other animals.  I doubt that invertebrates can have a philosophy of altruism, but there are many examples of animal behavior in which individuals and groups sacrifice their own interests for the sake of the survival of the species. 
This has been a rather loose statement in response to some ideas that collided in my brain on a warm, foggy morning.  Some of the issues are definitely worth further exploration and careful expression.  I'm working on it.