WHAT DOES THIS MEAN
Here you will find the meaning of words and terms associated with parrots *************************************************************************
Here you will find the meaning of words and terms associated with parrots *************************************************************************
Abbreviations - Parrot Species
B&G - Blue and Gold Macaw
BC - Blue Crown Conure
BCMA - Blue Crown Mealy Amazon
BE2 - Bare Eyed Cockatoo
BFA - Blue Front Amazon
BHC- Black Headed Caique
BP2 - Black Palm Cockatoo
BP2 - Black Palm Cockatoo
BSL - Blue Streak Lorry
C2 - Citron Cockatoo
BTC - Brown Throated Conure
BTM - Blue Throated Macaw
CAG - Congo African Grey
CM - Catalina Macaw
DYH - Double Yellow Head Amazon
E2 - Eleanora Cockatoo
EFP - Edward's Fig Parrot
G2 - Goffins Cockatoo
GC - Green Cheeked Conure
GCC - Gold Capped Conure
GCP - Grey Cheeked Parakeet
GE - Grand Eclectus
GSC - Greater Sulphur Crested Cockatoo
GSC2 - Greater Sulpher-Crested Too
GW - Green Wing Macaw
HH - Hawkheaded Parrot
HM - Hahns Macaw
HMC - Half Moon Conure
HYM - Hyacinth Macaw
IM - Illiger Macaw
Keet - Parakeet
LCA - Lilac Crowned Amazon
LSC - Lessor Sulphur
Crested Cockatoo
LSC2 - Lesser Sulpher-Crested Too
MA - Mealy Amazon
M2 - Moluccan Cockatoo
MBC - Maroon Bellied Conure
MGM - Miligold Macaw
MM - Military Macaw
MM2 - Major Mitchell (Leadbeater) Cockatoo
MRHA - Mexican Red Head Amazon
MSC - Medium Sulphur Crested Cockatoo
OWA - Orange Winged Amazon
PC - Painted Conure
RB2 - Rose Breasted Cockatoo
RLA - Red Lored Amazon
RM - Ruby Macaw
RSE - Red Sided Eclectus
RV2 - Red Vented Cockatoo
SBCC - Slender Billed Corella Cockatoo
SC2 - Sulpher-Crested Too
SIE - Soloman Island Eclectus
SM - Scarlet Macaw
T2 - Triton Cockatoo
T2 - Triton Cockatoo
TAG - Timneh African Grey
Tiel - Cockatiel
Too - Cockatoo
U2 - Umbrella Cockatoo
VE - Vosmaeri's Eclectus
WBC- White bellied Caique
WFA - White Fronted Amazon
WF - White Faced Cockatiel
YCM - Yellow Collared Macaw
YNA - Yellow Naped Amazon
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B&G - Blue and Gold Macaw
BC - Blue Crown Conure
BCMA - Blue Crown Mealy Amazon
BE2 - Bare Eyed Cockatoo
BFA - Blue Front Amazon
BHC- Black Headed Caique
BP2 - Black Palm Cockatoo
BP2 - Black Palm Cockatoo
BSL - Blue Streak Lorry
C2 - Citron Cockatoo
BTC - Brown Throated Conure
BTM - Blue Throated Macaw
CAG - Congo African Grey
CM - Catalina Macaw
DYH - Double Yellow Head Amazon
E2 - Eleanora Cockatoo
EFP - Edward's Fig Parrot
G2 - Goffins Cockatoo
GC - Green Cheeked Conure
GCC - Gold Capped Conure
GCP - Grey Cheeked Parakeet
GE - Grand Eclectus
GSC - Greater Sulphur Crested Cockatoo
GSC2 - Greater Sulpher-Crested Too
GW - Green Wing Macaw
HH - Hawkheaded Parrot
HM - Hahns Macaw
HMC - Half Moon Conure
HYM - Hyacinth Macaw
IM - Illiger Macaw
Keet - Parakeet
LCA - Lilac Crowned Amazon
LSC - Lessor Sulphur
Crested Cockatoo
LSC2 - Lesser Sulpher-Crested Too
MA - Mealy Amazon
M2 - Moluccan Cockatoo
MBC - Maroon Bellied Conure
MGM - Miligold Macaw
MM - Military Macaw
MM2 - Major Mitchell (Leadbeater) Cockatoo
MRHA - Mexican Red Head Amazon
MSC - Medium Sulphur Crested Cockatoo
OWA - Orange Winged Amazon
PC - Painted Conure
RB2 - Rose Breasted Cockatoo
RLA - Red Lored Amazon
RM - Ruby Macaw
RSE - Red Sided Eclectus
RV2 - Red Vented Cockatoo
SBCC - Slender Billed Corella Cockatoo
SC2 - Sulpher-Crested Too
SIE - Soloman Island Eclectus
SM - Scarlet Macaw
T2 - Triton Cockatoo
T2 - Triton Cockatoo
TAG - Timneh African Grey
Tiel - Cockatiel
Too - Cockatoo
U2 - Umbrella Cockatoo
VE - Vosmaeri's Eclectus
WBC- White bellied Caique
WFA - White Fronted Amazon
WF - White Faced Cockatiel
YCM - Yellow Collared Macaw
YNA - Yellow Naped Amazon
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PARROTS EYES
This is from "Manual of Parrot
Behavior". The title of the chapter is "Sensory Capacities of Parrots"
and the authors are Jennifer Graham, Timothy F. Wright, Robert J.
Dooling, and Reudiger Korbel.
As many of you know a bird's vision is from 2 to 8 times stronger than a
mammal. Birds eyes are relatively large in relation to the size of
their skull. Because of this their eyes allow a relatively large image
to be focused on their retinas. They also have a higher density of
"cones" than humans. The authors give an example of a hawk which has
300,000 cones per square millimeter whereas humans have around 147,000
cones per square millimeter. "Cones" are cells within the eyes that
detect daylight and colors. Also, in a bird's eye, nearly every cone is
represented by an individual axon to the bird's brain. An "axon" is a
nerve fiber- so essentially, each cone in a bird's eye has a direct wire
to its brain. In humans, we may have from 6 to 7 million cones, but
only a million axons in our optic nerves- meaining we have fewer light
receptors and several of those receptors all share a single wire to our
brain.
A parrot's eyeball is also flattened whereas ours are round. Their eyes
project a relatively smaller image when compared to other birds- especially birds of
prey. Also, we all know that a parrot can turn its head nearly 180
degrees to look around in all directions. This makes up for their lack
of eye movements.
Also, different from humans, a bird can directly control the dilation of
its eyes- and many of us can see this when our birds "pin" their eyes
when they are excited. Parrots often rapidly dilate and constrict their
pupils when they are being aggressive or are excited. Humans can not
willingly dilate or constrict their pupils. Birds do have "pupillary
light reflexes" but they are not the same as they are in humans.
Unlike humans, birds do not have blood vessels in their retinas.
Instead, they have a structure called a pecten which many scientists
belive noursihes retina cells and keeps them alive.
We have all noticed that when a bird is seriously studying something it
will turn its head or body sideways and focus one eye on the object of
interest. Behaviorists have found that birds have better lateral vision
than they do frontal vision and they take advantage of "monocular"
vision for that reason.
Another neat thing about birds eyes are that they are either
"tetrachromatic" or "pentachromatic" depending on the species. Human
eyes are "trichromatic". That means our vision is based on three
colors- red green and blue. Bird eyes can detect ultraviolet
light, fluorescent light, in addition to red, green, and blue light. In
fact, many scientists believe that their ability to see ultraviolet
light is related to their behaviors. Many feathers reflect UV lights
and studies have shown that UV reflection can affect mate choice. UV
reflection from feathers and skin can vary between sexes in some
species- and even though we (humans) can not tell the difference,
viaually, between a male and female in many species, a bird can. Also,
some types of fruits reflect UV light and the amount of light reflected
is indicative of the ripeness of the fruit. So, a bird can tell how
ripe a piece of fruit is and decide if he wants to eat it or not (maybe that explains
some of out picky eaters!!! ). The same is true for flowers.
Some babies have UV reflective cells in their mouths that tell their
parents where to stick their beaks at feeding time! Gouldian finches
are a great example of this.
Another interesting fact about birds is that they can detect a spatial
frequency of about 160 frames/second (or Hertz (Hz))- compared to 50 or 60
Hz in humans. That means that some "stroboscopic" effects
that humans may not be able to see ARE visible to birds. Artificial
lights often do not produce continuous light- meaning that they produce
light in very short bursts like 100-120 Hz. We can not see this but our
birds can. Also consider that many televisions refresh their screens at
a rate of 50-95 Hz, so our birds may be seeing more "choppy" motion than
we do if they are watching television with us or looking over our shuolders
when we are at the computer.
Many scientists are not sure what effects this might have on
birds. However, you can help improve your bird's welfare and living
conditions by providing full spectrum lights, normal light cycles, and
continuous emitting light sources
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THE BIRD BILL OR BEAK AND TONGUE
One of the most notable things about birds is their jaws and the fact that they have beaks properly called a bills Different shaped bills serve different ecological purposes and are a good indication as to the bird's feeding habits. General purpose bills like the European Magpie or the Aristy have a general sort of diet involving a mixture of invertebrates and fruits. Some other examples are short thin bills for insect eaters, short thick bills for seed eaters, long thin bills can be for probing flowers for nectar or probing soft mud for worms and shellfish, strong hooked bills for tearing meat. The huge bills of Toucans and Hornbills are both decorative and functional. Being light, as well as long they allow the birds to pick fruit from the thin ends of branches that can not support the birds weight. Of course, food is not the only consideration and in birds the bill can play an important role in sexual selection, this is most notable in the Puffin whose bill grows a set of colourful scales during the spring to help in attracting a mate, in the spring? these scales are lost again making the bill duller and lighter.
Birds' bills are relatively lightweight structures as jaws go, weighing much less for their size than the comparable vertebrate jaws which involve bony supports and normally teeth.
A bird's bill is composed of a number of separate horny plates called rhamphotheca which are made of a protein called keratin (the same protein that makes our hair and a rhinoceros' horn). The rhamphotheca are fused together in most birds but some evidence can be seen of their individual existence in the bill of the Fulmar, Fulmaris glacialis.
TONGUE
Yes most birds have tongues though unlike ours a bird's tongue has 5 bones in it that support and strengthen it, together they are called the 'Hyoid apparatus'There is also a great deal of variation in bird tongues. A bird's tongue is generally harder and less flexible than ours. Most birds have a relatively simple tongue, a flat triangular blade in shape with a few backwardly pointing papillae at the back of the mouth which help to ensure food only goes in one direction. In some birds however the tongue has become highly evolved. In some fish-eating birds such as Penguins the whole tongue is covered in backwardly pointing spikes which help in swallowing the fish. In other fish-eating birds such as Cormorants, the tongue has been almost completely reduced.
In Woodpeckers the tongue has become greatly elongated and is stored deep in the birds skull when not extended. Woodpeckers' tongues also have a sharp pointed top to spear wood-boring insect larvae. The end of the tongue has backwardly directed barbs to help in drawing the food items out of their holes in the wood.
Brush-tongued lories, as their name implies, have a tongue with a small brush at the tip. The brush is used to collect nectar form the various flowers which these birds visit. Other primarily nectar-feeding birds such as Hummingbirds, Sunbirds and Honeyeaters have evolved tubular tongues. These effectively give the bird a straw with which to suck up the nectar.
Finally, in parrots the tongue has become thicker and more swollen - more like ours. This helps parrots to manipulate their food in their mouths, but it also makes it possible for them to make all the sounds that so endear them to us
****************************************************************************
A BIRDS BRAIN AND NERVES
Like all animals birds need a control centre and a set of communication channels to ensure that there system runs smoothly. As in most more complicated animals this is usually called a brain and a nervous system.
Birds have a similar basic plan to their nervous system as the rest of the vertebrates. The central nervous system is made up of a brain, a spinal chord and nerves. The brain is situated inside the skull and connected to one end of the spinal chord which as its name suggests runs down the centre of the spinal column. The nerves are bundles of neurones - a neurone is a single cell which transmits a micro-electrical pulse from one end of itself to the other. Neurones come in two sorts, sensory and motor. Sensory neurones are little alarms triggered by a variety of sense organs; eyes, ears, bristles, etc. They carry the messages to the brain that the bird uses to build up and maintain its image of the world. Motor neurones transmit messages the other way - from the brain to the muscles.The brain of a bird weighs about 10 times as much as a brain of a reptile of the same weight, but slightly less than that of a mammal of the same weight. However, there is considerable variation between birds of similar size. For birds weighing in at around 85g, brain weight varies from 0.73g for a Quail to 2.7g for a Great Spotted Woodpecker. There is therefore quite a range in the intelligence of birds, with game birds at the bottom of the list and Woodpeckers, Owls and Parrots at the top.
A bird's brain is different to a mammalian brain in that the complex folds found in the cerebral cortex of mammals are missing and the cerebral cortex itself is much smaller proportionally than in mammals. Instead the corpora striata, a more basic part of the cerebral hemispheres is proportionally larger and better developed. It is this portion of a bird's brain which is used to control instinctive behaviour - feeding, flying, reproduction etc. The mid-brain is also well developed as this is the part of the brain primarily concerned with sight, while the olfactory lobes are reduced as would be expected given that bird's in general have little use of the sense of smell.
The bird's skull is mostly occupied by eyes and the brain has to make do with what space it can find in a rather narrow cranium.
The brain contacts most of the body through the spinal column/chord with which it forms the central nervous system. Birds normally have 38 pairs of spinal nerves radiating out to the body along the spinal chord, a number of these are grouped in small bundles called plexi, (i.e.) the brachial plexus, which act as regional headquarters maintaining and controlling some actions with minimal input from the brain.
Birds also have what is called an autonomic nervous system, which as in mammals and reptiles controls such essential actions as heartbeat, breathing and digestion. This can be divided into two sections; the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic system.
The sympathetic nervous system works in harmony with the endocrine system and the release of adrenaline and noradrenaline to stimulate a rapid response to danger. This is often called the 'fight or flight' reflex as it determines when a bird decides to make a rapid exit from the awareness of a predator.
The parasympathetic system is made up of a series of groups of ganglia situated near various important organs such as the heart, lungs and digestive organs. These it controls and regulates with only occasional input from the brain.
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BREATHING IN BIRDS
Like us, birds need to breathe air in and out of their lungs in order to fulfil the cycle of bringing oxygen into the body to be used in metabolism and also to take the waste CO2 away from the body. However, unlike us, when a bird breathes the air does not go simply in and out of the lungs in a simple u-shaped path. Instead birds' have a number of large extensions called 'air sacs' and hollow (pneumatized) bones all interconnected to their lungs. These allows the air to flow around in a grand circle meaning birds can have fresh oxygen rich air in their lungs all the time Also unlike us mammals, a bird's breathing is not driven into and out of the lungs by means of a diaphragm. In birds, breathing is controlled by muscular contractions of the ribcage which reduce or increase the overall size of the body cavity and thus force air out of the various air sacs.
THE BIRD BILL OR BEAK AND TONGUE
One of the most notable things about birds is their jaws and the fact that they have beaks properly called a bills Different shaped bills serve different ecological purposes and are a good indication as to the bird's feeding habits. General purpose bills like the European Magpie or the Aristy have a general sort of diet involving a mixture of invertebrates and fruits. Some other examples are short thin bills for insect eaters, short thick bills for seed eaters, long thin bills can be for probing flowers for nectar or probing soft mud for worms and shellfish, strong hooked bills for tearing meat. The huge bills of Toucans and Hornbills are both decorative and functional. Being light, as well as long they allow the birds to pick fruit from the thin ends of branches that can not support the birds weight. Of course, food is not the only consideration and in birds the bill can play an important role in sexual selection, this is most notable in the Puffin whose bill grows a set of colourful scales during the spring to help in attracting a mate, in the spring? these scales are lost again making the bill duller and lighter.
Birds' bills are relatively lightweight structures as jaws go, weighing much less for their size than the comparable vertebrate jaws which involve bony supports and normally teeth.
A bird's bill is composed of a number of separate horny plates called rhamphotheca which are made of a protein called keratin (the same protein that makes our hair and a rhinoceros' horn). The rhamphotheca are fused together in most birds but some evidence can be seen of their individual existence in the bill of the Fulmar, Fulmaris glacialis.
TONGUE
Yes most birds have tongues though unlike ours a bird's tongue has 5 bones in it that support and strengthen it, together they are called the 'Hyoid apparatus'There is also a great deal of variation in bird tongues. A bird's tongue is generally harder and less flexible than ours. Most birds have a relatively simple tongue, a flat triangular blade in shape with a few backwardly pointing papillae at the back of the mouth which help to ensure food only goes in one direction. In some birds however the tongue has become highly evolved. In some fish-eating birds such as Penguins the whole tongue is covered in backwardly pointing spikes which help in swallowing the fish. In other fish-eating birds such as Cormorants, the tongue has been almost completely reduced.
In Woodpeckers the tongue has become greatly elongated and is stored deep in the birds skull when not extended. Woodpeckers' tongues also have a sharp pointed top to spear wood-boring insect larvae. The end of the tongue has backwardly directed barbs to help in drawing the food items out of their holes in the wood.
Brush-tongued lories, as their name implies, have a tongue with a small brush at the tip. The brush is used to collect nectar form the various flowers which these birds visit. Other primarily nectar-feeding birds such as Hummingbirds, Sunbirds and Honeyeaters have evolved tubular tongues. These effectively give the bird a straw with which to suck up the nectar.
Finally, in parrots the tongue has become thicker and more swollen - more like ours. This helps parrots to manipulate their food in their mouths, but it also makes it possible for them to make all the sounds that so endear them to us
****************************************************************************
A BIRDS BRAIN AND NERVES
Like all animals birds need a control centre and a set of communication channels to ensure that there system runs smoothly. As in most more complicated animals this is usually called a brain and a nervous system.
Birds have a similar basic plan to their nervous system as the rest of the vertebrates. The central nervous system is made up of a brain, a spinal chord and nerves. The brain is situated inside the skull and connected to one end of the spinal chord which as its name suggests runs down the centre of the spinal column. The nerves are bundles of neurones - a neurone is a single cell which transmits a micro-electrical pulse from one end of itself to the other. Neurones come in two sorts, sensory and motor. Sensory neurones are little alarms triggered by a variety of sense organs; eyes, ears, bristles, etc. They carry the messages to the brain that the bird uses to build up and maintain its image of the world. Motor neurones transmit messages the other way - from the brain to the muscles.The brain of a bird weighs about 10 times as much as a brain of a reptile of the same weight, but slightly less than that of a mammal of the same weight. However, there is considerable variation between birds of similar size. For birds weighing in at around 85g, brain weight varies from 0.73g for a Quail to 2.7g for a Great Spotted Woodpecker. There is therefore quite a range in the intelligence of birds, with game birds at the bottom of the list and Woodpeckers, Owls and Parrots at the top.
A bird's brain is different to a mammalian brain in that the complex folds found in the cerebral cortex of mammals are missing and the cerebral cortex itself is much smaller proportionally than in mammals. Instead the corpora striata, a more basic part of the cerebral hemispheres is proportionally larger and better developed. It is this portion of a bird's brain which is used to control instinctive behaviour - feeding, flying, reproduction etc. The mid-brain is also well developed as this is the part of the brain primarily concerned with sight, while the olfactory lobes are reduced as would be expected given that bird's in general have little use of the sense of smell.
The bird's skull is mostly occupied by eyes and the brain has to make do with what space it can find in a rather narrow cranium.
The brain contacts most of the body through the spinal column/chord with which it forms the central nervous system. Birds normally have 38 pairs of spinal nerves radiating out to the body along the spinal chord, a number of these are grouped in small bundles called plexi, (i.e.) the brachial plexus, which act as regional headquarters maintaining and controlling some actions with minimal input from the brain.
Birds also have what is called an autonomic nervous system, which as in mammals and reptiles controls such essential actions as heartbeat, breathing and digestion. This can be divided into two sections; the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic system.
The sympathetic nervous system works in harmony with the endocrine system and the release of adrenaline and noradrenaline to stimulate a rapid response to danger. This is often called the 'fight or flight' reflex as it determines when a bird decides to make a rapid exit from the awareness of a predator.
The parasympathetic system is made up of a series of groups of ganglia situated near various important organs such as the heart, lungs and digestive organs. These it controls and regulates with only occasional input from the brain.
***********************************************************************************
BREATHING IN BIRDS
Like us, birds need to breathe air in and out of their lungs in order to fulfil the cycle of bringing oxygen into the body to be used in metabolism and also to take the waste CO2 away from the body. However, unlike us, when a bird breathes the air does not go simply in and out of the lungs in a simple u-shaped path. Instead birds' have a number of large extensions called 'air sacs' and hollow (pneumatized) bones all interconnected to their lungs. These allows the air to flow around in a grand circle meaning birds can have fresh oxygen rich air in their lungs all the time Also unlike us mammals, a bird's breathing is not driven into and out of the lungs by means of a diaphragm. In birds, breathing is controlled by muscular contractions of the ribcage which reduce or increase the overall size of the body cavity and thus force air out of the various air sacs.
THE SENSE OF SMELL AND BIRD NOSES
Whether birds have a sense of smell or not has been a much debated question by ornithologists. Modern data based on experiments and anatomy of both the nasal cavities and the olfactory lobes of the brain suggest that most birds have practically no sense of smell. The exceptions are Kiwis which have poor eyesight and hunt worms using their sense of smell. Several species of tubenoses which can detect the smells of fish oils floating on the surface of the sea, allowing them to find schools of fish or anchovies because their messy feeding causes an oily scum to form on the surface of the sea. The third group of birds definitely known to use smell to locate food are the vultures - both old world and new world species have been shown to find carcasses by smell to varying degrees. Other groups of birds with well developed olfactory lobes, but for which the actual evidence of the use of smell to locate prey is lacking, include various waders, many water birds, nightjars and swifts.Most birds have two external nostrils or 'nares' situated near the base of the top mandible of their bills. In species of tubenoses (Shearwaters, Albatrosses, Petrels, etc) these are accompanied by large external growths, in other birds they are inconspicuous. In Kiwis the nostrils are situated near the tip of the bill not the base and in Gannets the external openings are closed - they have alternative openings on the inside of the the upper mandible of the bill.
Birds breathe through these nostrils which lead the air into a series of three internal nasal cavities. These purify the air of dust, etc, and humidity before it enters the respiratory system thus preventing damage to the delicate tissues of the lungs.
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Whether birds have a sense of smell or not has been a much debated question by ornithologists. Modern data based on experiments and anatomy of both the nasal cavities and the olfactory lobes of the brain suggest that most birds have practically no sense of smell. The exceptions are Kiwis which have poor eyesight and hunt worms using their sense of smell. Several species of tubenoses which can detect the smells of fish oils floating on the surface of the sea, allowing them to find schools of fish or anchovies because their messy feeding causes an oily scum to form on the surface of the sea. The third group of birds definitely known to use smell to locate food are the vultures - both old world and new world species have been shown to find carcasses by smell to varying degrees. Other groups of birds with well developed olfactory lobes, but for which the actual evidence of the use of smell to locate prey is lacking, include various waders, many water birds, nightjars and swifts.Most birds have two external nostrils or 'nares' situated near the base of the top mandible of their bills. In species of tubenoses (Shearwaters, Albatrosses, Petrels, etc) these are accompanied by large external growths, in other birds they are inconspicuous. In Kiwis the nostrils are situated near the tip of the bill not the base and in Gannets the external openings are closed - they have alternative openings on the inside of the the upper mandible of the bill.
Birds breathe through these nostrils which lead the air into a series of three internal nasal cavities. These purify the air of dust, etc, and humidity before it enters the respiratory system thus preventing damage to the delicate tissues of the lungs.
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VIBRATION AND TOUCH
Birds have contact and touch sensors on various parts of their bodies. These include their feet, bills and tongues ( i.e Woodpeckers). This relates to the fact that it is these parts of their bodies which most often come into contact with the rest of the world. In some birds the tactile sensors are particularly well developed in the bills allowing them to feed mostly by probing and feeling for prey, this is most evident in waders. Birds also have special small feathers called bristles which are situated all around the body and which help birds know where their feathers are.Some birds also have large numbers of vibration sensors called Herbot's corpuscles located in their legs. These allow them to detect the approach of other birds or predators along both the ground and on the limbs of trees. Herbot's corpuscles have also come to play a role in the nuptial displays of certain species of grouse. This ability to detect very faint vibrations has also been suggested as a reason why birds seem to know when an earthquake is about to happen before we humans have any idea about it.
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Birds have contact and touch sensors on various parts of their bodies. These include their feet, bills and tongues ( i.e Woodpeckers). This relates to the fact that it is these parts of their bodies which most often come into contact with the rest of the world. In some birds the tactile sensors are particularly well developed in the bills allowing them to feed mostly by probing and feeling for prey, this is most evident in waders. Birds also have special small feathers called bristles which are situated all around the body and which help birds know where their feathers are.Some birds also have large numbers of vibration sensors called Herbot's corpuscles located in their legs. These allow them to detect the approach of other birds or predators along both the ground and on the limbs of trees. Herbot's corpuscles have also come to play a role in the nuptial displays of certain species of grouse. This ability to detect very faint vibrations has also been suggested as a reason why birds seem to know when an earthquake is about to happen before we humans have any idea about it.
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HEARING AND THE BIRDS EAR
One of the endearing and endlessly fascinating things about birds is their song. Nearly all birds make some noises. Sound, as a prelude to, and part of, courtship, as a means of simply staying in touch with the flock. As a way of identifying either your young or your parents and as an efficient method of sending out a quick warning of approaching danger is an integral part of both a birds and a bird watchers life. Naturally enough if birds are using sound as a means to communicate then they need to be able to hear as well as create sounds. For this, they have, like you and me, ears.
Birds have good ears but they tend to hear things differently to us. Within sounds birds recognise and remember something akin to absolute pitch whereas humans perceive sounds via relative pitch. Very few humans can hear and remember absolute pitch. Relative pitch however allows us to hear a tune in one octave and still recognise the tune in a different octave. Birds cannot do this. Birds do however recognise 'timbre' (a fundamental note combined with harmonies). Recognising timbre and harmonic variations gives birds great versatility in the sounds that they can respond to, and in some cases reproduce. Birds also hear shorter notes than we can. Humans process sounds in bytes about 1/20 of a second long whereas birds discriminate up to 1/200 of a second. This means where we hear one sound only, a bird may hear as many as ten separate notes. Some birds such as Pigeons can hear much lower sounds than us. Birds (Pigeons) can be music buffs and can distinguish between human composers such as Bach and Stravinsky.The range of hearing in many species of birds is comparable with that of mankind. Having a greatest sensitivity between 2000 and 4000 hertz (cycles per second). This is partly why bird song is so useful in bird identification - it is easy for us to hear - and partly why we find bird song so pleasant. In birds as a whole, the known hearing ranges vary from a lower limit of below 100 hertz to over 29000, though not all birds have this range. The common Mallard (Anus platyrhynchus) for instance has a range from 300 hz to 8000 hz.
Some birds have hearing much more sensitive than ours. Owls not only are more sensitive to small sounds but have asymmetrical ears (one ear being lower on the skull than the other) this means sounds from a single source reach the ears at slightly different times. This gives the owl the equivalent of binocular hearing, allowing them to pinpoint the source of a sound extremely accurately. Barn Owls, Tyto alba, can locate and catch small mammals in complete darkness using only their hearing. Finally, a number of species of owls have tufts of feathers which look like ears and give rise to names like 'Long Eared Owl' and 'Short Eared Owl'. These 'ears' are not ears at all, however, and have nothing to do with hearing.
Birds lack the externally visible part of the ear that we think of as an animal's ear and which is strictly speaking called the pinna. The ear of a bird has three chambers much like ours. The outer ear is simply a tube leading to the tympanum or ear drum. Behind this is the middle ear which has a single bone stretched across it called the columella. This is where, in mammals, you have an arrangement of three bones (Hammer, Anvil and Stirrup/Stypes). The inner ear is bathed in fluid, the outer and middle ears being air filled. It consists of five parts, of which two, the semicircular canals (see above) and the utricle are concerned with balance. The other three are the cochlea, the lagena and the sacculus. The lagena is used to help detect low frequency sounds, the sacculus to help detect high frequency sounds and the cochlea contains special sensory hears which change the physical vibrations caused by the sound waves into electrical impulses to be passed along to the brain.
The ear evolved in fish as an organ of balance and it still performs this function today in both birds and mammals. The part of the ear that is the organ of balance consists of three semicircular canals situated in a part of the inner ear called the utriculus. These three canals lie one each in the three different planes of the material, i.e. one horizontal, one vertical and one sagittal. They contain a fluid and sensitive hairs. Movement of the head causes the fluid in the canals to move which energises or triggers the sensory hairs. The degree of movement of liquid in each canal combines to tell the bird exactly where its head is at any given moment in time. This is very similar to how the human sense of balance works. Naturally, for creatures who move in a fundamentally more fully three dimensional universe than we do a good sense of balance is very important.
Birds start using calls early in their lives, in some species even before they are hatched. Quail chicks use calls to communicate with each other and their mother from inside their eggs. They are able this way to synchronise their hatching so that they all emerge from the eggs within the space of a couple of hours. Pelican chicks tell their mum if they are too hot or cold from inside the eggs. Chicks also listen to their parents while inside the eggs. This way they come to recognise their parents even before emerging form the eggs. Some birds such as Mallards have special maternal calls that they give while incubating the eggs so that after hatching the mother only has to give this call to have the chicks rush to her for protection.
Sound is often more important than sight in parent-offspring recognition. A deaf female turkey is unable to recognise her own chicks and chickens cannot recognise silenced chicks (with a belljar over them). Experiments have also shown that, in colony nesting birds at least young birds can recognise their own parents by their calls alone, though they all sound the same to us.
Not all young birds learn to recognise their parents or vice versa immediately. In Herring Gulls, about 5 days pass before this recognition takes place, while Kittiwakes take up to 5 weeks for recognition to register.
Birds also distinguish their mates by call. Gannets are colony nesting birds and a nesting site can have thousands of birds coming and going in a noisy melee that would befuddle a human listener, yet gannets can distinguish the calls of their particular mate from all those around them on the basis of only 1/10 second of the total call.
Birds use sounds other than those created by their vocal chords. Sounds can be created by stamping as in Coots, or by clacking the mandibles together as in Frigate birds, Albatrosses and Storks. Birds also use their wings to create sounds, simply by clapping them together as the wood pigeon or by having modified feathers which vibrate at a set frequency when exposed. Snipe use this during courting. Two feathers on either side of the tail vibrate as the bird falls out of the sky. Other birds which make sounds with their wings include Mute Swans, Broad-tailed Hummingbirds, Bellbirds and the New Zealand Tui. Perhaps the best known of these percussive sounds is the drumming of woodpeckers. Each woodpecker, in those species tested, has its own drumming pattern so male and female birds can easily recognise each other while they are out foraging.
Perhaps the most unusual however is the Palm Cockatoo which makes drumsticks from twigs and beats them against a hollow log in time with a pirouette during courtship.
Several species of cave dwelling birds use echolocation similar to bats to detect objects around them in the dark. Swiftlets from S.E. Asia, also known because some of them produce the nests used in making bird-nest soup, use sounds with a frequency between 4.5 and 7.5 kHz to navigate in the caves they nest in. Oilbirds in South America also nest in caves and use sounds in a range between 1.0 and 15 kHz emitted in staccato bursts to navigate inside the cave. Unlike the Swiftlets, Oilbirds are nocturnal but they do not use their echolocation outside of the cave. The sounds both these species use are audible to the human ear and sounds caused by a flock disturbed by a human intruder into their nesting caves have lead to many tales of devils and demons. The echolocation of both these species is considerably less efficient than that of bats because the sounds are lower and therefore have longer wavelengths. This means that they cannot distinguish smaller objects. Oilbirds cannot, apparently, detect anything smaller than about 15cm diameter while Swiftlets have a lower size limit of about 6 cms diameter.
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One of the endearing and endlessly fascinating things about birds is their song. Nearly all birds make some noises. Sound, as a prelude to, and part of, courtship, as a means of simply staying in touch with the flock. As a way of identifying either your young or your parents and as an efficient method of sending out a quick warning of approaching danger is an integral part of both a birds and a bird watchers life. Naturally enough if birds are using sound as a means to communicate then they need to be able to hear as well as create sounds. For this, they have, like you and me, ears.
Birds have good ears but they tend to hear things differently to us. Within sounds birds recognise and remember something akin to absolute pitch whereas humans perceive sounds via relative pitch. Very few humans can hear and remember absolute pitch. Relative pitch however allows us to hear a tune in one octave and still recognise the tune in a different octave. Birds cannot do this. Birds do however recognise 'timbre' (a fundamental note combined with harmonies). Recognising timbre and harmonic variations gives birds great versatility in the sounds that they can respond to, and in some cases reproduce. Birds also hear shorter notes than we can. Humans process sounds in bytes about 1/20 of a second long whereas birds discriminate up to 1/200 of a second. This means where we hear one sound only, a bird may hear as many as ten separate notes. Some birds such as Pigeons can hear much lower sounds than us. Birds (Pigeons) can be music buffs and can distinguish between human composers such as Bach and Stravinsky.The range of hearing in many species of birds is comparable with that of mankind. Having a greatest sensitivity between 2000 and 4000 hertz (cycles per second). This is partly why bird song is so useful in bird identification - it is easy for us to hear - and partly why we find bird song so pleasant. In birds as a whole, the known hearing ranges vary from a lower limit of below 100 hertz to over 29000, though not all birds have this range. The common Mallard (Anus platyrhynchus) for instance has a range from 300 hz to 8000 hz.
Some birds have hearing much more sensitive than ours. Owls not only are more sensitive to small sounds but have asymmetrical ears (one ear being lower on the skull than the other) this means sounds from a single source reach the ears at slightly different times. This gives the owl the equivalent of binocular hearing, allowing them to pinpoint the source of a sound extremely accurately. Barn Owls, Tyto alba, can locate and catch small mammals in complete darkness using only their hearing. Finally, a number of species of owls have tufts of feathers which look like ears and give rise to names like 'Long Eared Owl' and 'Short Eared Owl'. These 'ears' are not ears at all, however, and have nothing to do with hearing.
Birds lack the externally visible part of the ear that we think of as an animal's ear and which is strictly speaking called the pinna. The ear of a bird has three chambers much like ours. The outer ear is simply a tube leading to the tympanum or ear drum. Behind this is the middle ear which has a single bone stretched across it called the columella. This is where, in mammals, you have an arrangement of three bones (Hammer, Anvil and Stirrup/Stypes). The inner ear is bathed in fluid, the outer and middle ears being air filled. It consists of five parts, of which two, the semicircular canals (see above) and the utricle are concerned with balance. The other three are the cochlea, the lagena and the sacculus. The lagena is used to help detect low frequency sounds, the sacculus to help detect high frequency sounds and the cochlea contains special sensory hears which change the physical vibrations caused by the sound waves into electrical impulses to be passed along to the brain.
The ear evolved in fish as an organ of balance and it still performs this function today in both birds and mammals. The part of the ear that is the organ of balance consists of three semicircular canals situated in a part of the inner ear called the utriculus. These three canals lie one each in the three different planes of the material, i.e. one horizontal, one vertical and one sagittal. They contain a fluid and sensitive hairs. Movement of the head causes the fluid in the canals to move which energises or triggers the sensory hairs. The degree of movement of liquid in each canal combines to tell the bird exactly where its head is at any given moment in time. This is very similar to how the human sense of balance works. Naturally, for creatures who move in a fundamentally more fully three dimensional universe than we do a good sense of balance is very important.
Birds start using calls early in their lives, in some species even before they are hatched. Quail chicks use calls to communicate with each other and their mother from inside their eggs. They are able this way to synchronise their hatching so that they all emerge from the eggs within the space of a couple of hours. Pelican chicks tell their mum if they are too hot or cold from inside the eggs. Chicks also listen to their parents while inside the eggs. This way they come to recognise their parents even before emerging form the eggs. Some birds such as Mallards have special maternal calls that they give while incubating the eggs so that after hatching the mother only has to give this call to have the chicks rush to her for protection.
Sound is often more important than sight in parent-offspring recognition. A deaf female turkey is unable to recognise her own chicks and chickens cannot recognise silenced chicks (with a belljar over them). Experiments have also shown that, in colony nesting birds at least young birds can recognise their own parents by their calls alone, though they all sound the same to us.
Not all young birds learn to recognise their parents or vice versa immediately. In Herring Gulls, about 5 days pass before this recognition takes place, while Kittiwakes take up to 5 weeks for recognition to register.
Birds also distinguish their mates by call. Gannets are colony nesting birds and a nesting site can have thousands of birds coming and going in a noisy melee that would befuddle a human listener, yet gannets can distinguish the calls of their particular mate from all those around them on the basis of only 1/10 second of the total call.
Birds use sounds other than those created by their vocal chords. Sounds can be created by stamping as in Coots, or by clacking the mandibles together as in Frigate birds, Albatrosses and Storks. Birds also use their wings to create sounds, simply by clapping them together as the wood pigeon or by having modified feathers which vibrate at a set frequency when exposed. Snipe use this during courting. Two feathers on either side of the tail vibrate as the bird falls out of the sky. Other birds which make sounds with their wings include Mute Swans, Broad-tailed Hummingbirds, Bellbirds and the New Zealand Tui. Perhaps the best known of these percussive sounds is the drumming of woodpeckers. Each woodpecker, in those species tested, has its own drumming pattern so male and female birds can easily recognise each other while they are out foraging.
Perhaps the most unusual however is the Palm Cockatoo which makes drumsticks from twigs and beats them against a hollow log in time with a pirouette during courtship.
Several species of cave dwelling birds use echolocation similar to bats to detect objects around them in the dark. Swiftlets from S.E. Asia, also known because some of them produce the nests used in making bird-nest soup, use sounds with a frequency between 4.5 and 7.5 kHz to navigate in the caves they nest in. Oilbirds in South America also nest in caves and use sounds in a range between 1.0 and 15 kHz emitted in staccato bursts to navigate inside the cave. Unlike the Swiftlets, Oilbirds are nocturnal but they do not use their echolocation outside of the cave. The sounds both these species use are audible to the human ear and sounds caused by a flock disturbed by a human intruder into their nesting caves have lead to many tales of devils and demons. The echolocation of both these species is considerably less efficient than that of bats because the sounds are lower and therefore have longer wavelengths. This means that they cannot distinguish smaller objects. Oilbirds cannot, apparently, detect anything smaller than about 15cm diameter while Swiftlets have a lower size limit of about 6 cms diameter.
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WINGS: A bird's wings are constructed of a series of small thin bones similar to miniature versions of the bones in human arms. Externally, the wings are home to several different kinds of feathers: the Primary Flight Feathers, the Secondaries, the Main and Lesser Coverts, the Tertials, and the Alula. The feet and legs of birds vary greatly depending on the species. Generally the legs, feet, and claws are structured to allow a bird to take off, land, climb, and grasp with them. Since birds spend most of their lives perching, the feet and legs are covered with a tougher skin than the skin on the rest of the bird's body.
FOOT: The feet and legs of birds vary greatly depending on the species. Generally the legs, feet, and claws are structured to allow a bird to take off, land, climb, and grasp with them. Since birds spend most of their lives perching, the feet and legs are covered with a tougher skin than the skin on the rest of the bird's body.
FOOT: The feet and legs of birds vary greatly depending on the species. Generally the legs, feet, and claws are structured to allow a bird to take off, land, climb, and grasp with them. Since birds spend most of their lives perching, the feet and legs are covered with a tougher skin than the skin on the rest of the bird's body.