Birds- Blog Post 2

 By Dominique Gilbert, Christina Gold, Zachary Greening, Noa Hechtman, Jacob Wolfe

I have always wanted to learn more about birds. My mother told me that my grandma loved birds, and although I never got to meet my grandma, I feel especially connected to her when I see one, particularly a blue jay or a cardinal. I think this is because they are one of the “prettiest” birds, and one that I don’t commonly see which is why I admire them when I do. Sometimes I wonder what it was about birds that my grandma seemed to love so much. Was it their beauty? Was it the fact that there arewere so many species of birds? Or was it seeing them fly? I’m guessing it was all three reasons,  and maybe even more, that I may or may not ever be able to come up with.

The site, “Dictionary” states that a bird is, “Any warm-blooded vertebrate of the class Ave’s, . Having a body covered with feathers, forelimbs modified into wings, scaly legs, a beak, no teeth, and bearing young in a hard-shelled egg”.  So, which came first: the chicken or the egg? The world may never know. However, let us talk about something we do know, starting with our state bird. I remember learning in elementary school that every state has its own “state bird”. Although I wish I could say that Florida’s state bird is an eagle, specifically an FGCU eagle or even an American eagle, it is actually the Northern Mockingbird.

Thinking about it, I guess we do have some relation to the Mockingbird considering I’m pretty positive we all had to read “To Kill a Mockingbird” at some point in our academic careers. ““The Mockingbird was adopted as Florida’s state bird in April of 1927, It is a songbird and also the state bird of Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas” (Ferguson). They are grey and white, 10 inches long, and they basically sing all throughout the year but seemingly for different reasons, each bird usually knows around 25-30 different “songs”. Some fun facts are that only the “single males” sing at night and scientists have found that female mockingbirds are attracted to males that can make the most amount of sounds.

Mockingbirds are seemingly cool and all but there are also literally 10,000 different species of birds and , likely even more than that, r. Some Researchers believe there may actually be up to 20,000 species. “The numbers that say 10,000 are based on what is known as the “biological species concept” in which they are claiming is an outdated source; it basically defines species in terms of what animals can breed together” (Zink). So, speaking of 20,000 different bird species, I was wondering what the most common birds in the world are so that we can gain a little bit of perspective. “The most common bird in the entire world is the Domestic Chicken in which there are 22.67 billion” (Nag).  The second would be the number one most common bird in the wild at 1.5 billion it is the Red-Billed Quelea, then it drops down to the millions following. The Mourning Dove, American Robin, Common Pheasant, Red-Winged Blackbird, Chipping Sparrow, Common Starling, Common Swift and Yellow-Rumped Warbler which all range between 1-5 million. Although common, they each have something unique about them.

The Domestic Chicken is not only known for the obvious: food, . But also held in high regard within the Egyptian, Zoroastrians and Roman cultures. Secondly, the Red-Billed Quelea are most commonly found in Africa.

When they fly together, they fly with many and can sometimes be mistaken for a cloud! The Mourning Dove is the most frequently hunted species in North America.  The American Robin is popular for its warm orange breast. The Common Pheasant is native to China and East Asia. What’s really cool about this bird is that it is very easy to tell which is female and which is male as the male is very vibrant and the female is grey. This is usually a similar case with a lot of birds. The vibrant colors are supposed to be used to try and impress the female. The male Red-Winged Blackbird will do anything they can to get noticed, they sit on high perches and sing all day long. The Chipping Sparrow has a black line through its eye, and the oldest Chipping Sparrow in the world was at least 10 years and 11 months old.

The Common Starling,: known to be a bit aggressive, but when taken a good look at our beautiful birds. “All the European Starlings in North America descended from 100 birds set loose in New York’s Central Park in the early 1890s. The birds were intentionally released by a group that wanted America to have all the birds that Shakespeare ever mentioned. It took several tries, but eventually, the population took off” (Cornell University). What’s really cool about these birds is that, since they’ve only been around starting insince the 1980s, there is littlesmall genetic variance but that hasn’t seemed to stop these birds from flourishing, literally. They are also great voice mimics., Iinstead of creating their own sounds they kind of just steal the ones they hear from other birds;, now that’s smart. But don’t worry Common Starlingsthey have some individual characteristics too; they are strong fliers and can get up to speeds of 48 mph even when the speed limit is 35.

The Common Swift, as of November 2016, has been the new record holder for the longest uninterrupted flight. “Scientists have found that the birds can stay up in the air for 10 months straight” (O’Donnell). Scientists seemed to have suspected that they could fly for very long periods of time but never really had the technology to be able to prove it. Then came the iPhone. and then they were also able to attach a light and an accelerometer on 13 different birds. Three of these birds did not land for 10 months.

Scientists suspect the reason they stay in the air so much is that they appear as though they are wounded and fragile when on the ground making them easy predators, so they avoid the ground as much as possible. Last on the list of the 10 most common birds is the Yellow-Rumped Warbler. Both males and females have yellow on them. Often times they feed on insects in midair, yet quickly switch over to eating berries in the fall.

Works Cited

aab_admin_user. “Online Bird Guide, Bird ID Help, Life History, Bird Sounds from Cornell.” All About Birds, Cornell University , www.allaboutbirds.org/news/.

 “Bird.” Dictionary.com, Dictionary.com, www.dictionary.com/browse/bird.

“Common Pheasant.” National Geographic, 24 Sept. 2018, www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birds/c/common-pheasant/.

Ferguson, Joe. “Florida State Bird.” Florida State Bird: Mockingbird (Mimus Polyglottos), www.ereferencedesk.com/resources/state-bird/florida.html. 

Nag, Oishimaya Sen. “The Most Common Birds in the World.” WorldAtlas, 9 Mar. 2016, www.worldatlas.com/articles/most-populous-bird-species-in-the-world.html.

O’Donnell, Jenna. “The Common Swift Is the New Record Holder for Longest Uninterrupted Flight.” Audubon, 9 Nov. 2016, www.audubon.org/news/the-common-swift-new-record-holder-longest-uninterrupted-flight.

Zink, Robert, and John Klicka . “New Study Doubles the Estimate of Bird Species in the World: AMNH.” American Museum of Natural History, www.amnh.org/about/press-center/new-study-doubles-the-estimate-of-bird-species-in-the-world.