The big question
What exactly is a bird? It’s a question pondered by Ruth Miller following the delivery of a new book
Exactly what does make a bird a bird? It’s a question prompted by a new book that has captivated Ruth, this month…
There was a heavy thump as a parcel came through our letterbox and onto the doormat. A new bird book had arrived to be reviewed. I opened the cardboard packaging to reveal a large book entitled ‘What is a Bird?’ sporting a colourful illustration of a beautiful Inca Jay on the cover.
Inside, the pages were packed with coloured photos of birds, close-ups of feathers and bills, diagrams, charts, maps, tables and more. I turned a few pages just to get a feel for the book. An hour and a half later, I reluctantly put it down and got back to what I was supposed to be doing that morning!
It was a fascinating study of all aspects of what it is that makes a bird a bird, starting with the evolution of the modernday bird from its dinosaur origins, and the features that connect this evolution. Of course, the most striking feature of a bird is its ability to fly. Who among us hasn’t watched a bird lift off into the sky and wished that we could do the same?
Perhaps it’s a Kestrel hovering in mid-air as it searches for prey on the ground, its wings and tail outstretched, making minute adjustments to keep the head still as it focuses on the ground below, before plummeting down to pounce on an unsuspecting vole in the grass. Or maybe a Fulmar, its stiff wings locked in effortless flight as it skims across the sea, catching every updrift of air over the waves.
Or how about a Swift briefly arcing across our summer skies in pursuit of insects, before abandoning our climate for warmer air and plentiful food in Africa. Not all birds can fly of course, some are simply too heavy to beat the laws of physics and are landbound such as Ostriches, or maybe adapt like penguins to ‘fly’ underwater instead.
The book discussed avian feeding habits and the specific adaptations of bills and feet to suit a bird’s particular diet, and how each bird has adapted to best suit its own niche to give it an advantage over potential competition. If you spend time birdwatching at an estuary for example, you can clearly see this adaptation at work. Birds gather on the mudflats exposed by the falling tide, all feeding voraciously on invertebrates in the refreshed mud, yet they are not in direct competition.
Fascinating facts
Different bill and leg lengths lend themselves to different feeding strategies. The Dunlin, for example, a dumpy bird with short legs and a drooping bill, feeds by walking slowly forward and probing the mud for insects and worms.
The Curlew is at the other end of the wader spectrum, with its fantastically long decurved bill. It can stand in deeper water and probe to a much greater depth into the mud with flexible mandibles, which act like tweezers to pull out deeply submerged worms, shellfish and shrimps beyond the reach of the Dunlin.
Compare and contrast this orderly subdivision of food with the competition
among Homo sapiens at a breakfast buffet!
‘What is a Bird?’ also covered migration and the incredible journeys that some species undertake to spend time each year in a different part of the world that provides a food benefit. This requires birds to know the right time to make the journey and have incredible navigational skills to complete a journey they may have never done before, as well as the adaptability to survive the rigours and dangers of the journey itself.
An extreme example is the Bar-tailed Godwit, which can migrate non-stop from its breeding grounds in Alaska to overwinter in New Zealand. It has the mind-bending ability to shrink any internal organs not needed for the flight, such as its stomach, for example, as it won’t stop en route to feed, in order to maximise the space and weight available for storing energy for the journey. One tagged bird was monitored in 2020 flying an astonishing 7,500 miles (12,000 km) non-stop in just 11 days, an achievement that we humans simply aren’t equipped to undertake.
And, as for the rather derogatory phrase ‘bird-brain’ that we use for someone who isn’t perhaps the brightest button in the box, well you simply couldn’t imagine a more inappropriate phrase for a creature that is so supremely adapted to survive.
And yet I believe there is still more to a bird than its anatomy, physiology and behaviour. Birds have an ability to have an impact on us that extends beyond their mere being. It’s totally unconscious of course; no wild bird actively seeks to do anything to benefit us as human beings, and yet they always have a positive effect on us, chip-stealing Herring Gulls notwithstanding.
Flying doctors
Just by being there to be watched, birds can improve our health. If you look out of the window and see a bird, for the time that you watch it feeding or preening or simply flying by, you are absorbed by it. You concentrate on the bird and you forget everything else. Any concerns or worries you may have, are simply buried by the action of watching the bird. It’s the perfect mindfulness activity and the more you do it, the better you’ll be for it. If you add going for a walk to watch birds, then you add even more health benefits into the mix with fresh air, exercise, and a greater appreciation of your own place in the world, all contributing to your improved mental and physical health.
The idea of green prescriptions is becoming increasingly mainstream as the health benefits of the natural environment are recognised more in our current constrained times, and watching birds is the icing on top of this healthy cake. Put simply, birds make you feel better. As the American poet Emily Dickinson, wrote in 1861, “Hope” is the thing with feathers – That perches in the soul’.
Ruth Miller is one half of The Biggest Twitch team, and along with partner Alan Davies, set the then world record for most bird species seen in a year – 4,341, in 2008, an experience they wrote about in their book, The Biggest Twitch. Indeed, Ruth is still the female world record-holder! As well as her work as a tour leader, she is the author of the Birds, Boots and Butties books, on walking, birding and tea-drinking in North Wales, and previously worked as the RSPB’s head of trading. She lives in North Wales. birdwatchingtrips.co.uk