Call for Bird Facts
Added 2025-03-22 19:05:28 +0000 UTCComments
Ah, I didn't see this in time. Next time!!!
Hendry
2025-04-25 16:01:41 +0000 UTCMost birds have only one exit hole called a cloaca. Male birds have two testes which become hundreds of times larger during the breeding season.
Eric Frank
2025-04-25 00:11:42 +0000 UTCShrikes on are my list, I became fascinated with them after reading Hyperion!
Hendry
2025-03-25 04:31:37 +0000 UTCThis makes me wonder how song or call evolution changes in different animals, like I've heard cetaceans will have different "dialects" for their vocalizations
Hendry
2025-03-25 04:30:13 +0000 UTCI have so many questions about penguin taxonomy now haha. Excellent
Hendry
2025-03-25 04:28:46 +0000 UTCHere are some bird facts I was told: Birds can sleep while flying by shutting off half their brain at a time. Mockingbirds copy the songs of other birds and animals and even humans, they can store hundreds of different sounds. Male shrikes impale their pray on thorns and spikes. Cuckoos and cow birds lay their eggs in other birds nests. Albatrosses spend most of their time in the ocean. Crows can recognize people and transfer learnings to other crows.
Bailey Williams
2025-03-24 21:32:13 +0000 UTCWhite-throated sparrows are changing their song en masse: https://youtu.be/aYT5QF64LmQ?si=-4TTLWxQOleXCEiE The call of red-winged blackbirds sounds kind of familiar: https://youtu.be/0P5gpYz3Urc?si=gmDtbi0MnbtK0TZK
Karl Bunker
2025-03-24 01:14:23 +0000 UTCI know the Auckland Zoo has a Penguin of the Month award (and a subreddit, I believe). Also, no extant “penguin” is a true penguin? And the Galapagos penguin does technically live in the northern hemisphere since the Galapagos islands (and its home range) straddles the equator. Those facts came from the recent Clint’s Reptile’s video, though, so no citation necessary lol.
Ben Gemperline
2025-03-23 19:30:03 +0000 UTCThought I had no facts but this did inspire me. The limitations of their beak+esophagus reminded me of how I was taught birds have a "second stomach (gizzard) they use to chew." After refreshing my memory on it though the gizzard feels more like a mix of heart/tongue/teeth than stomach, with the proventriculus analagous to mammalian salivary glands or something? The idea of ingesting matter that is not itself digested, but remains in the tract to aid in later digestion is neat too. Gut video parallel there sorta. Also had not known that it's the digestive mechanism used in many smaller animals and invertebrates but it makes sense! I agree the evolutionary implications are cool to ponder. The notion that mammals especially humans have basically incorporated entire digestive tracts worth of mechanisms into a single stage of our own, or completed them before our process has even begun (i.e. cooking) is cool. Gotta appreciate our.. complexities when we can, ig
Josh Brooks
2025-03-23 11:33:09 +0000 UTCExcellent... excellent... I heard a dubious reddit story about a wedding send-off where they had the guests throw bird seed on the happy couple and it was... the capsaicin kind...
Hendry
2025-03-23 00:08:44 +0000 UTCGood lord... I mean it doesn't seem to stop them...
Hendry
2025-03-23 00:07:34 +0000 UTCPossibly a bit too basic for an HG video but: • Birds don't have capsaicin receptors, so they can eat extremely hot chiles without any ill effect. Some brands of birdseed are treated with capsaicin to keep squirrels and other mammals from gorging themselves at bird feeders. • Due to humans providing feeders and (in all likelihood) climate change, many once-migratory populations of Anna's Hummingbirds are now year-round residents in colder parts of the West Coast. • The oldest known wild bird is a 74-year-old albatross in Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge. • Speaking of bone-eating, the calamitous decline of vulture populations in India may lead to the end the Zoroastrian practice of sky burial. See the 2023 Radiolab episode "Corpse Demon". • Barred Owls are an invasive species on the West Coast, and are so territorial that U.S. Fish & Wildlife plans to kill half a million of them to prevent them from wiping out the endemic/endangered Spotted Owl. (Also Barred Owls are jerks and I've been attacked 10+ times for the unthinkable crime of jogging at night.)
Dan Engler
2025-03-22 23:54:59 +0000 UTCPigeons are REALLY BAD at building nests. Google a pigeon nest.
kaldo
2025-03-22 22:56:56 +0000 UTCOther one I really love to inspire you: birds can't go into space because they require gravity to swallow water :)
Hendry
2025-03-22 20:39:24 +0000 UTCAbsolutely, on a similar note, a fun trivia question is you basically have the answer for is, what is the difference between a "tion" and a "liger"?
Hendry
2025-03-22 20:38:52 +0000 UTCBirds have completely different sex chromosomes than mammals and duckbilled platypuses have sex chromosomes that have characteristics of both mammals and birds (10.1038/nature03021). Not sure if this counts as a bird fact or not but I find it fascinating for the implication that there may be common lineage between mammals and birds. At least in some cases. I don't know, I'm not a biologist.
WellenInspektor
2025-03-22 19:59:47 +0000 UTC
