Saturday
5 November 2022

For today's message, I am going to talk about:

Currently there are over 10,000 different species of birds on Earth. They live worldwide and range in size, from the 5.5cm Bee Hummingbird to the 2.8m Ostrich. Birds are considered the "only known living dinosaurs" and are social creatures. Many of them pass knowledge across generations (which can be considered a form of culture). The vast majority of bird species are socially monogamous. Unfortuately, about 130 different species have become extinct since the 17th century, but there is much to celebrate about these astonishing beings of the sky. Some even enjoy living in the sky more than on land.

The Sooty Tern spends more time in the air than any other bird. It takes off over the ocean and flies for at least 3 years without settling on water or land. Swifts also spend most of their lives in the air. They can even sleep in the air by gliding on air currents with their wings outstretched.

While most male birds do not have a penis, the Argentine Lake Duck’s penis can extend 43cm, the longest of any bird known. The duck itself is only about 40cm tall. The base of the penis is covered with coarse spines, and the tip is soft and brush-like, perhaps to clean sperm that may have been deposited in the female’s oviduct by another suitor. When not in use, the corkscrew shaped penis retracts into the duck’s abdomen.

Kinda creepy duck, can even use its penis as a lasso 😳

The most common wild bird in the world is the red-billed Quelea, with an estimated adult breeding population of 1.5 billion pairs. It mostly lives in sub-Saharan Africa and thousands of birds can be in a single flock. The most common nonwild bird is the chicken.

I think this one is nice. It only lives in southern Africa.

To make them more lightweight, most birds do not have bladders to store urine. Rather than producing liquid urine to get rid of wastes, they produce a white, pasty substance. However, while an ostrich does not have a bladder like a mammalian bladder, it is unique among birds because it does have a complete separation of feces and urine.

Remember the bird's "artwork" from that Antarctic film we watched?

Many birds, such as Starlings, sing notes too high for humans to hear. The word "swan" is derived from the Indo-European root *swen, meaning "to sound, to sing. Unlike most birds that sing, a woodpecker will drum its beak against a tree. Other woodpeckers can identify which bird it is by the sound of the drumming.

Female Pileated Woodpecker pecking at branch in Florida

The Fieldfare birds have a special way to attack an enemy bird. They gang up on it and make it fly to the ground. Then the Fieldfares fly into the air and drop poop on the bird.

The Fieldfare breeds in woodland and scrub in northern Europe and across the Palearctic.

I hope that you enjoyed some of the birds today!