Questions Kids Ask
Here are your most frequent bird watching questions.
How do birds fly?
The simple answer is: with their wings. A more accurate answer is that everything about a bird's body is designed for flight, including its specialized feathers, hollow bones, and very strong flight muscles located in the breast. As a bird flaps its wings, the force of the wings does two things: lifts and propels the bird. As the wings push downward and backward, more air is moved below the wing than above it. This difference in the amount of air, or air pressure, is what causes lift, and results in upward and forward movement of the bird.
The concept of lift, such as that produced by a bird's wing, can be illustrated easily. Have your youngster hold his or her hand, flattened with fingers together, just outside the window of a moving car. When the leading edge of the hand tilted upward, the force of the wind immediately pushes the hand upward. This is exactly how the aerodynamic design of a bird's wing helps to create life and helps to hold a bird in the air in between flaps or while gliding.
How fast do birds fly?
Although they seem very fast to us, most birds do not fly more than 30 or 40 miles per hour at top speed. In general, small birds fly slower, and big birds fly faster. Birds as small as sparrows probably fly less than 20 miles per hour while some of the hawks fly as much as 50 or 60 miles per hour. We don't know much about how fast birds fly because it is very hard to measure. Improvements in technologies such as radar will probably allow us to answer some of these questions in the future.
What makes a bird a bird?
The first thing most people notice about birds is that they can fly, but that is not what makes them unique. Bats, bugs, and butterflies also take to the air, and they aren't birds. What makes birds different from every other kind of animal on earth are feathers. Feathers make it possible for birds to live a large part o their lives in the air. Feathers weigh very little, are strong (to survive long flights), and provide terrific insulation (which is why people living in the coldest parts of the world prefer jackets stuffed with goose down). Most birds also have hollow bones. If bird bones were solid, like human bones, birds would be too heavy, which would make flight very difficult.
Where do birds go at night?
Most birds spend the night sleeping, just as humans do. A few birds, like the owls are awake at night and rest during the day. The birds that rest at night find a safe place, such as a thick bush or shrub, where the nighttime predators will not see them. Some, such as woodpeckers, spend the night in holes in trees. Most ducks, on the other hand, sleep on the water.
Do birds fly at night?
Most birds can fly at night, but will only do so if necessary. The reason for this is that their eyes, like human eyes, are not designed to see in nighttime conditions. If a bird cannot see well, it risks injury by flying at night. Unless startled into flight by a predator, most birds will avoid leaving their nighttime roost.
Other species, such as owls and nightjars (nighthawks and whippoor-wills) fly primarily at night, their most active time, and sleep during the day. Songbirds, such as warblers and tanagers, which are active during daylight hours, do fly at night during migration, when they must travel long distances. It is thought that these migrants fly at night because the air is cooler, so there is less chance of their overheating during the long, strenuous periods of flight.
How do owls see at night?
Owls and other nocturnal birds have specially adapted eyes and ears that make it possible for them to sleep during the day and stay awake at night. The pupils of the eyes of these nighttime birds are much larger than the pupils of our eyes. The large pupils gather much more of the available light than our eyes do. In addition, there are two kinds of cells in most eyes, rods and cones. We human beings have more cone cells in our eyes, which allows us to see color. Owls have very few cone cells but many rod cells, that are efficient at gathering light.
Because the eyes of owls are so large, they do not move from side to side and up and down the way human eyes do. An owl cannot look off to the side without moving its head, which is why owls have a special adaptation that allows them to turn their head almost all the way around without breaking their necks!
Owls and other nocturnal birds also hear better than we do. The small bones in an owl's ear that record sound are more sensitive than ours. What's more, an owl's ears are not symmetrical; that is, the ear on one side of the head is lower than the ear on the other, meaning that sound reaches one ear slightly before the other. This tiny difference is enough to permit an owl to know exactly where a sound came from. Because of this highly sensitive hearing, owls can find a small animal, such as a mouse, even when there is no light at all.
Why do birds migrate?
Not all birds migrate. Some, such as cardinals, live their whole lives within a fairly small area. Many birds migrate long distances, however. Birds migrate primarily for two reasons, to avoid bad weather and to find food. Many geese and ducks leave the north in winter because the water there freezes, and these birds need open water to survive. Warblers, which eat mostly insects, leave North America and go south to the tropics, because there is no food for them in the north in winter.
How do birds know where to go when they migrate?
This question has fascinated scientists for centuries, and we are only beginning to know how some birds find their way during long migrations. Birds are born knowing that they must migrate, but knowing that is not the same as knowing how to get from a woodlot in Wisconsin to a jungle in Brazil or from a sea cliff in Alaska to a feeding ground in the Antarctic. We know that some birds are born with a "star map" coded into their brains that allows them to navigate by the position of the stars and the moon. Some birds use the earth's magnetic field to find their way, and some use subsonic sound, the low-level noise created by ocean waves. Still others, like geese and swans, make their migrations in family groups, led always by an older bird that has made the flight before. There is still much to learn, however, about how birds make such long flights and find precisely the right spot.
How do birds stay warm in the winter?
Birds have a number of ways to beat the cold, but none so important as their feathers. You may have noticed how on a very cold day the birds at your feeder seem rounder and more puffed-up than usual. This is a way of keeping warm by raising the feathers to create pockets of warm air and enhance insulation. In addition, may species change their plumage, molting into a fresh thick set of feathers prior to the colder months.
Especially helpful are the very fluffy and soft body feathers known as down. These feathers provide super insulation, much like the goose down we use in coats and comforters.
At night, birds can dramatically slow down their body's metabolic rate (the rate at which the body consumes energy), and lower their body temperature, to conserve energy. During very cold nights, small birds such as chickadees and nuthatches may find a tree cavity or birdhouse where they can spend the night, huddled together with several other birds of the same species. Such communal roosting permits the birds to share body heat. There have been reports of as many as 20 pygmy nuthatches sharing a single tree cavity. Ducks can swim in water that is almost frozen because their feathers have natural oils and are waterproof. Waterproof feathers retain all of their insulating avility. Ducks have a netlike system of blood vessels in their legs that brings warm blood from the heart, alongside cold blood returning from the feet, keeping the feet warm in icy water.
Some birds are not adapted to survive cold winter weather. These species are known as migrants, since they must migrate in response to changes in weather. The osprey, an eagle-like bird that dives into the water from a great height for fish, lacks down feathers in its plumage. The osprey cannot keep its feathers from getting wet, and it has no insulating down, so it must leave the northern portion of its range when cold weather arrives. When warm weather returns to the area, so does the osprey.
Why are male birds more brightly colored than females?
This is not true for all bird species, but it is true for many birds we find in North America, such as the cardinal. The male cardinal is brilliant red, with a red crest and a striking black face. The female is a dull, gray-brown imitation. The reason? Males birds need to be conspicuous in order to attract a mate's attention, and to defend a breeding territory from competing males.
Females, on the other hand, are inconspicuous, which helps to protect them from the sight of predators and competitors during the nesting process. A brightly colored female cardinal would be easily spotted by a hungry hawk or owl. But in her drab attire, she blends well with the viney tangles and brambles in which cardinals prefer to nest.
Why do woodpeckers peck on trees?
Woodpeckers are named for the method in which they find food: pecking, hammering and digging in wood to reach insects, grubs, and even sap. But woodpeckers also use their bills to excavate holes in which to live and nest. They also hammer on tree trunks to advertise their territory and presence to other woodpeckers.
Woodpecker territorial drumming increases in frequency in the early spring months, before the breeding season.
Why does a male cardinal attack our window every spring?
Many reports come in every spring about crazy birds fighting with windows. In most cases a bird is seeing its reflection in the pane of glass and assuming the other bird to be a rival or intruder. The real bird attacks the reflected bird to drive it away, but is never successful in doing so.
This may continue for several weeks until the real bird tires out, or until something, such as a screen, is placed in front of the window to break up the reflection. Once the bird can no longer see its rival, it will go about its business.