How do woodpeckers hold vertically onto a tree and avoid banging themselves silly? Unlike most birds which have three forward toes and one hind toe, woodpeckers have two toes in front and two in back. This toe arrangement, along with stiffened tail feathers, allows the birds to lean back and...
Some of the biggest talons in the bird world belong to the largest birds of prey, such as eagles, hawks, and owls. These raptors use their powerful claws to catch and kill their prey. Other birds with large talons include cranes and storks, which use them for wading through water and ca...
Seabirds are being devastated by predators, fishing, and climate change. Saving them begins with knowing more about them.
Why Birds Sing in Key with Music, or how I finally put perfect pitch to use.Search Main menu Playing Music for Birds Why are birds attracted to music? Music: We all know what it is. Or do we? How I started playing music for birds What’s up with the “in-keyness”? Goldbird ...
Chickens, like many other animals, are resplendently different from one another. They can be therapy birds, worried mothers, helpful friends, impressive memorizers, and more, says anthropologist and writer Barbara J. King. Mr. Henry Joy was a small and unassuming bird.But when he rode through...
Birds preen and fluff up their feathers in anticipation of approaching cold weather. Fur coats thicken. Migrating animals go south. Some animals hibernate. Small animals eat almost constantly just to stay a live. The smaller the animal the greater their surface-area-to-volume ratio. Small animals...
To tell why the stork loves Holland, we must go back to the Africa of a million years ago. Then, we shall ask the Dutch fairies how they succeeded in making the new land, in the west, so popular in the stork world. For what reason did the wise birds emigrate to the cold country ...
(And birds do actually carry fires: black kites have been observed clasping flaming sticks in their beaks, spreading fire in dry forests to flush out prey. Some people have been tempted to use this to argue that indigenous folklore encodes important scientific knowledge. This is euheremistic ...
Some experts doubt the age and the provenance, but they’re going to auction it off for about $40,000. That would make each dram worth a ton, but who would drink such whisky? Still, whyshouldn’tyou drink it? It doesn’t do anybody any good sitting in this bottle: ...
To be forced to feel other than we do is manifestly an impossibility. Therefore what is really being asked is a pretence, a display of lip-service, which in a university whose reputation is founded on empirical and rational inquiry, open argument and free thought, is surely inimical. ...