Dear animal lovers, have you ever wondered how birds in the wild spend their time in extreme weather such as heavy rains and typhoons?
When extreme weather occurs, we can hide in the house and quietly watch the wind and rain outside and enjoy the comfort. But birds in the wild may not be that good. How many people have seen this picture below?
This picture is a very widely circulated bird black and white photography, people call it "birds in the wind and rain", "stubborn birds" and so on, so far this photo is from which photographer's hand, it has been difficult to study, Xiaobian in Google and various photography sites to find a circle, it is difficult to determine where the original source of this picture is.
This picture has always been a model of inspiration, revealing the meaning of strength, forbearance, responsibility, pressure, suffering and so on. Every time I see this picture, Xiaobian also has a heart for this little bird in his heart, just like the two sparrows in the snow in the picture below.
This is also the inspiration for this article: how do birds in the wind and rain in the natural environment spend their time? Let's take a look.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > where does the bird's ability to perceive the weather come from? </h1>
Most animals in nature have the ability to perceive weather changes: for example, cats, elephants, ants, and so on. Birds are no exception, and birds are more sensitive to weather changes than other animals. The scientific community has many opinions on this, and the current mainstream theory is that birds have unique bones, like a sensitive barometer.
Bird skeletons appear hollow, separated by honeycomb-like voids, and reinforced by crisscrossing pillars (standard: oblique small bone beams), a unique "boneless" structure that allows birds to minimize weight loss while not making bones too fragile on the other.
However, it should be noted that not all bones in birds are hollow, and the number of hollow bones varies significantly with birds. Most often, the long bones of birds are hollow, filled with air inside, while the short bones are not hollow, that is, the bone marrow in these short bones is immune, hematopoietic and defensive like humans.
The more flying birds, the more hollow skeletons there are, such as seagulls, whose bones account for less than 5% of the total weight of the bird, but the bones of the ostriches and penguins that cannot fly will not have hollow phenomena.
Perceived barometric pressure
Hollow bones, the most portable place for birds is to make birds more adaptable to long flights and more flexible. At the same time, the hollow skeleton is the "barometer" that birds bring with them. Before the rainstorm comes, the air pressure drops, and birds can feel this subtle change through their bones. The most distinctive feature is the seabird: people use the nature of seabirds to perceive storms at sea, and think of them as nautical meteorologists.
The Claim that Birds Perceive Storms: Infrasonic Theory
Birds also have the ability to perceive before typhoons and hurricanes strike. Scientists have found that birds can sense the infrasound before the typhoon, which is a kind of noise before the storm is generated. After receiving this infrasound, the birds make predictions about the storm.
If birds feel a storm, they choose to leave the danger zone and return to their nests, or choose rocks, tree holes, and bushes with gaps nearby. Or, like the cute baby owl in the picture below, using a mushroom as an umbrella to avoid the coming rainstorm, it seems that he was frightened by bad weather just after learning to fly.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > folk saying about birds perceiving the weather</h1>
Our Chinese national agriculture has always been very developed, and predicting the weather through the activities of birds from ancient times to the present has become a popular technique.
Scholars have studied that the level of magpie nesting is directly related to the amount of rain perennial rain. If there is more rain this year, the magpies will nest high, at the top of the branches; if there is less rain this year, the magpies will be more inclined to nest between the branches of the middle and upper parts of the tree. Therefore, we have a folk saying: "Magpies build nests high, and the rain is waterlogged in that year". There is also a saying that "magpies call on the branches and go out on sunny days"
The magpie's ability to accurately predict the weather for an entire year has not been explained until now.
The ability of birds to perceive the weather provides a very accurate weather reference for periods when weather was not developed.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > in extreme weather: how do different birds handle it? </h1>
Although the fact that birds can perceive storms is conclusive, different birds behave differently depending on the weather.
A small amount of rainfall
When there is little rainfall, not only does it pose no threat to the birds, but it is a weather that the birds like very much. Because when there is light rain, all kinds of insects will drill out of the soil, and flying insects will concentrate on flying low, providing birds with a rich source of insects: the most obvious is that when it is cloudy and rainy, we will often see low-flying domestic swallows, and we will see low-flying seagull albatrosses on the beach to catch fish that float on the surface to breathe.
Even weak and hummingbirds are not disturbed by a small amount of rainfall, which is a good opportunity for them to bathe. Therefore, a small amount of rainfall will hardly interfere with the lives of the birds.
Heavy rain
When the rainstorm comes, the birds' lives are not so optimistic. During the heavy rainstorm, you will see the scene of "a thousand mountain birds flying away, ten thousand paths of the forest disappearing" in the forest, and in the city, you will never see soaring birds again. Most of them return to their nests, built under the eaves or between the branches, chirping to escape the heavy rain.
The mother bird hurried home and opened her wings to protect the bird from getting wet. If you are unlucky and the wind is strong, there will be a bird's nest being blown to the ground, which is a more tragic end.
But there is a more tragic phenomenon than the bird's nest falling to the ground. In 2017, there was an incident in Texas, USA: the sudden rainstorm made many birds away from the nest more than 20 species of birds unable to avoid, and finally crashed into the office building in the storm and crashed to death...
Birds can't avoid this kind of thing, and it is true that it happens often, and they sometimes panic and choose their way. Once the rainstorm comes too suddenly, the birds will look for gaps in buildings and rocks to shelter themselves from the rain. So you may see that in a rainstorm, there will be birds hiding outside your window... For example, the bird that looks like a pigeon in the picture below is urgently sheltered outside the window of a netizen's house on July 26, 2016, when Qingdao suddenly had a thunderstorm and could not rush home.
And as shown below, this lost eagle, in the window of the netizen's window on the air conditioner has not left, this juvenile eagle looks like it can just fly, it encountered heavy rain, it seems to be a little dazed by the rain, like a "falling soup bird" look.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > birds in the wild get sick from the rain? </h1>
Yes, but very little. Because birds' body temperature systems are completely different from those of humans, they are born with their own rain boots and raincoats.
Local heterothermy in birds
Birds don't have feathers on their legs, but this doesn't cause heat loss in the birds. Because over a long period of evolution, birds have a magical feature: local heterothermia. The torso and legs of birds can reach a temperature difference of more than 30 ° C.
This feature stems from the unique countercurrent heat exchange system of bird footsteps, which can make the temperature of the bird's legs much lower than the body temperature, and slightly higher than the outside temperature, so the birds themselves do not need to consume too much heat to warm the legs, they can maximize the accumulation of heat in the body, so it is not easy to cause heat loss and cause colds and other diseases.
So this feature allows the birds themselves to "bring their own rain boots".
Waterproofness of bird feathers
You will see that birds frequently comb their feathers with their beaks, and the birds comb their feathers first to peck their "ass" and then peck at their own feathers. In fact, the action of "pecking the ass" is that the bird obtains grease from its mouth at the tail fat gland near the tail, and then brushes this layer of grease evenly onto the feathers to make a "natural raincoat" for itself.
The bird's feathers not only wrap the torso and head tightly, but also prevent rain from entering in a staggered form.
It is precisely because birds are born with the characteristics of "bringing their own rain boots" and "bringing their own raincoats", so they can also maintain a healthy body temperature in rainy weather.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > what to do in the face of a typhoon? If you can't afford it, you can hide, if you can't afford it, you can be tough, but you can get lost</h1>
Birds will inevitably encounter typhoons during migration or daily flight, especially seabirds are more likely to encounter windy weather. In the face of such a devastating disaster, the birds, as soon as they perceive the signs of a storm, will immediately flee the path of the typhoon without turning back.
After all, this kind of disaster is not even avoided by human fighters, let alone weak birds. But although the birds are weak, they are not stupid, in the process of migration, if they find that there is a typhoon blocking them, they will change their route in time, but if they find a downwind storm, the birds will catch the hitchhiker: if they are lucky, they can arrive at the landing site in advance.
Not all birds choose to escape and fly downwind, and there are also warrior-like beings among birds, that is, the middle sandpiper. It's a long-beaked migratory bird that braves storms, and scientists observed a domineering appearance through a locator in 2001:
A mid-aged sandpiper was blocked by a tropical storm during its migration, and as a result, the bird did not succumb to the difficulties at all, plunged into the storm at a speed of 11 km/h, and after 27 hours of storm shuttle, finally managed to rush out from the other end of the storm at a speed of 150 km/h! Can you believe that this weak-looking bird in the picture below fought the storm for a full 27 hours?
In the face of typhoons, some birds choose to be flexible, some birds choose to be tough, and some birds are more sad: they will be completely blinded by the typhoon.
In August 2012, the strongest hurricane Harvey made landfall in the coastal areas of the United States at 130 km/h, and as a result, it lost its way to migrating birds:
The crested wheat chicken (northern lapwing), a European wading bird, appeared in Massachusetts, usa, and the eastern wood pewee, which was originally in Central and South America, also appeared in New York.
Birds in the wild, without our steel-built tall buildings to shelter them from the wind and rain, rely on courage and wisdom to survive in a cruel natural environment. Strong birds, never afraid of challenges, if the storm is destined, then in the bird's heart, ready to fight: "Since there is no way to retreat, let the storm come more fiercely!" ”