What I've Been Reading

Bird Sense: What It's Like to Be a Bird by Tim Brikhead. I picked up this book to learn a thing or two about biomimicry but ended up learning much more than that. It's so sad how little we know about our little winged friends. 

Bird Sense is about how birds perceive the world. It is based on a lifetime of ornithological research and a conviction that we have consistently underestimated what goes on in a bird’s head. We already know quite a lot, and we are poised to make more discoveries. This is the story of how we got to where we are, and what the future holds.

• Seeing: However good we (arrogantly) think our colour vision is, compared with that of birds it is rather poor because they have four single-cone types: red, green, blue and ultraviolet (UV). Not only do birds have more types of cone than ourselves, they have more of them. What’s more, birds’ cone cells contain a coloured oil droplet, which may allow them to distinguish even more colors.
• Hearing: Birds are different in that their hair cells are replaced. Birds also seem to be more tolerant of damage created by loud sounds than we are. This is currently an area of intense research, for if we can establish the mechanisms by which birds replace their hair cells, a cure for human deafness might be found. So far the prize is elusive but in their quest researchers have discovered a great deal about hearing, including its genetic basis. Many birds’ songs, however, contain elements occurring at much shorter intervals than this and there is increasing evidence that birds are able to detect such differences. Indeed, this is the one aspect of hearing in which birds are much better than humans. It is as if they have the auditory equivalent of a slow-motion option in their brain, allowing them to hear details that are completely lost on us.
• Touch: We simply do not have the sensory (or mechanical) apparatus to do the same, which is why we would fail the muesli and gravel test. Ducks do, of course, use their eyes when they forage but in a different way – for example, when they take a piece of bread out of your child’s hand; but as the bread is grasped, its texture is detected by the bill-tip organ, and then, if it tastes okay, it is swallowed.
• Taste: We now know that the chicken has 300 and, from Berkhoudt’s work, that the mallard has about 400; Japanese quail have just 60 and the African grey parrot has at least 300– 400. But apart from these few species, we still have remarkably little information on the total number of taste buds possessed by birds. These studies confirmed that, despite their relatively small number of taste buds, birds respond to the same taste categories – salt, sour, bitter and sweet – as we do.
• Smell: Two nocturnal species, the kiwi and the kakapo, had the highest number of olfactory genes, 600 and 667 respectively, while the canary and blue tit, as expected on the basis of their relatively small olfactory bulb, had many fewer genes (166 and 218 respectively). There was one anomaly, however: the species with the greatest olfactory bulb size, the snow petrel, had only 212 olfactory genes. It is just possible that a 3-D scan might reveal this species’ bulb to be not as large as Bang and Cobb suggest, or possibly the snow petrel, which is diurnal, may be sensitive only to a limited range of odours and therefore require fewer genes.
• Magnetic Sense: Remarkably, birds also possess a magnetic map that allows them to identify their location – like a GPS system, but, rather than using satellite signals, birds use the earth’s magnetic field. 13 Migratory birds are not unique in this respect: a magnetic sense has been detected in non-migratory birds like the chicken, as well as in mammals and butterflies, presumably to help them navigate over more modest distances.
• Emotions: Resolute, on Cornwallis Island in Canada’s Nunavut, is one of the most remote settlements in the world. My arrival in mid-June coincides with the spring thaw and on that first day I notice a pair of brent geese by a frozen pool: black silhouettes against an icy background, waiting for the snow to melt and the opportunity to breed. The next day I drive past the frozen pool again, but am saddened to see that one of the geese has been shot. Beside its lifeless form stands the bird’s partner. A week later I pass the same pond again, and the two birds, one live and one dead, are still there. I left Resolute that day so I’m afraid I don’t know how long the bird stood vigil over its dead partner.

"In humans, consciousness integrates the different senses. I have no doubt that the senses of birds are integrated as well, and that this integration creates feelings (of some sort) that allow birds to go about their daily lives, but whether they create consciousness as we understand it remains unknown. We have made a lot of progress in the last twenty years and the more we find out, the more likely it seems that birds do have feelings. But this is difficult research: difficult, but potentially very rewarding, for by gaining a better understanding of birds, whose lives are similar in many ways to our own – in terms of being predominantly visual, basically monogamous and highly social – we stand to gain a better understanding of ourselves."