STUNNING FACTS ABOUT BIRDS.YOUR EYES WILL STICK.

 

1.    Senses of sight, smell, and hearing are amazingly acute in birds. This is especially factual of sight. Some include three eyelids, the upper and lower, and a membrane that can be drawn over the entire eye-ball making it possible for them to look directly at the sun. The best example of these is eagles, hawks, and owls.

2..     The eyes of the Eagles and Hawks are granted also a ring of bony plates, by means of which the eye regulates itself like a telescope, taking in both near and far objects. 

3.  The young of nest-building birds when born are naked, unable to walk, and blind. In the Ducks, the Hen, and the partridge, the young are capable of walking, swimming, or picking up food as soon as they come out from the shell.

4.    When moulting, near the breeding season, Quails usually shed in pairs. The male normally considered a duller-hued coat than the female.

5 .    In most birds of prey the female is the bigger than male.

6 .        Bird’s songs are compiled of love notes and pleasure-notes. Their songs can be set to music.

7 .    The strange and peculiar actions of birds, their dances, struts, and posturing are all expressions of their emotions.

8.    The nesting habits of birds are different. Gulls drop eggs on rocks or bare ground.

9.    The Baltimore oriole and Tailorbird build hanging nests of knotty workmanship.

10 .    The woodpecker carves out a deep nest in a rotten limb.

11 .    The kingfisher unearths one out of a sandy bank, while the Cuckoo takes ownership of the nest of some other bird.

12 .    Most birds choose nesting places away from other species, but Swallows, English Sparrows, Grackles, and crows are in this world in communities.

13 .    Swans are considered the largest waterfowl on earth. Male swan looks bigger than female. Except Antarctica swans are found throughout the world.

14. The chief distinctiveness which birds and reptiles have in familiar is the articulation of the skull to the other vertebrae by means of a single condyle or knob.

15.   The arm-bone or wing of a bird has more than three digits or fingers.

16.   Birds invariably produce eggs, which they incubate or bury in a hotbed of vegetable a matter like our Leipoa or Megapodius

 

17.    All birds put down eggs otherwise they would not be birds. All birds are sheltered, or nearly covered, with feathers, but in a few cases, the feathers are more or less as fine as hair or fur. But all birds do not fly, even though all of them have some kind of wings. Some birds are so big and have such small wings that the wings are not capable to carry them.

 

18 .   In such cases you will find either that the bird can run very fast or that it is a good swimmer so that it is not essential for it to fly, either in catching its food or running away from its enemies.

 

19.  All animals, including birds, for birds belong to the animal kingdom, seem to be built for just one purpose—to live. In order to live, it must get something to eat and be competent to get out of the way of its enemies.

 20.  If you will get a bird—or any animal for that matter—and examine it, you will find that everything about it is useful in supporting it to live.

 21.  For example, the color of the quail is to facilitate it to hide, and its toenails are to enable it to scratch for bugs and hidden seeds. Birds that can fly speedily do not have to hide so well as other birds, to run away from the enemies that lie in wait.

 

22.  The quail cannot fly so fast as a hawk, but it can hide so smartly that a hawk cannot find it. The bird's bill gets the place of teeth. People sometimes say that a duck has teeth, but that is not the case.

 

23.  A duck's bill is uneven on the edges like a file, so that it can hold greasy frogs and little minnows, but it does not use its bill in grinding food just in gathering it and holding it until it can get the food into its mouth and swallows it.

24. The skull of a bird is unlike the skull of other animals. The skull of a squirrel is composed of several bones, fixed firmly together in a sort of saw-tooth style, like the edges of two saws put together. A bird's skull is in one piece. In some birds, the parrot for illustration, the upper bill is a part of the skull, but in most birds, the bill is only fastened to the skull.

25.  In such cases there is usually a straight bill or a very long one—or one that is both straight and long. Where a bird's bill is only fastened to its skull there is a soft, spongy growth that forms a sort of rubber ball.

26.  When such a bird eats at a hard substance, it does not jerk its head as would be the case if the bill were a part of the skull. If a parrot were to peck at a telegraph pole as hard as a woodpecker does, it would give him the headache, but a woodpecker never feels the jolt because he has a rubber-tired bill, as you might say.

 27.   Many birds have a bigger brain in proportion to their size than has a man. A man's brain is from one-twentieth to one-thirtieth of his whole body—or ought to be—but the brain of a canary bird is one-fourteenth of its entire body. But the same part does not hold good in all birds.

 

28. A goose owns a brain of only one three-hundred-and-sixtieth of its body, and an eagle of one two-hundred-and-sixtieth of its body, while the little old English sparrows carry a brain of one the twenty-fifth of their weight.

29. It is no surprise that a chicken does not fall off of the limb when it goes to sleep; it can't. It is made to sit upon a limb and sleep. When it sits down its toes close up and it cannot open them until it wakes up. The only way a chicken could fall off of a limb would be for it to stand up

30.   Feathers do not grow upon anything but birds. When observed by the chemist, a feather is found to hold about the same substance as hair, or horn, or hoof. There is no blood in feathers, nor nerves. That is, there is no "emotion’’ in a feather. It does not hurt a bird to clip the feathers, but it must hurt some to pull them out, just as it hurts a boy to pull out his hair.

31. Birds that live in water, or aquatic birds as they are named by people who recognize a great deal and want to use big words have more feathers, and of a different kind, than other birds.

32.The feathers upon some waterfowl are so thick and stretch out so close to the bird that the shot will not reach the skin. The feathers are also greasy so that water will not go through them.

 3. The diving birds do not get wet, and if you will take a bird that has just come out of the water, you will find its skin nice and dry. 

There are three separate parts of a feather. First, the quill, or empty, bony-like substance at the bottom and which grows in the bird.

Then the shaft, which is only a continuation of the quill and in the middle of the feather.

 And the vane or beard, that fine, thin substance which projects from the shaft. There are other scientific parts of a feather, but we are not going into detail here.

 34. Have you ever observed that when you get scared suddenly little bumps form upon the skin goosebumps some people call them? Well, if you were a bird there would be a feather in each one of those little bumps, and, of course, when the bumps "raised up" your feathers would be tangled.

 That is why the feathers upon a bird tangle up when the bird is scared or mad. It is the same process that causes the hair upon a dog's back to rising when it gets mad—or an old cat. You know how the fur on her back stands up straight at times.

35. There are some birds that are dark in summer and snow-white in winter.

 That is not because the feathers change color, but because new feathers grow out. New feathers are growing out on birds all the time.