Introduction
Birds are the life of the skies, and when they fly, they reveal the thoughts of the skies. —D. H. Lawrence
The world abounds with a spectacular diversity of birds: feathered, egg-laying, extremely adaptable winged vertebrates that live on all seven continents. There are more than ten thousand living species of birds in the world.
The (very groovy) Curl-Crested Aracari
It actually looks like he has a perm!
Wilson’s Bird of Paradise
This bird has a futuristic-looking bonnet and two perfectly curled feathers. What!?
The California Quail
This bird has a little dangle thing coming off his head, for crying out loud!
Birds live virtually everywhere on Earth, and encountering them is part of the universal human experience. A few bird species can even be found on every continent (except Antarctica):
Osprey
Mallard Duck
Barn Owl
Whimbrel
Barn Swallow
Wilson’s Storm-Petrel (also found in Antarctica)
The most common species of bird found in the world in the chicken. There are about twenty billion chickens alive in the world at any time, which is about three chickens per human. The global chicken population outnumbers all of the planet’s dogs, cats, rats, cows, and pigs, combined.
One cool breed of chicken from Java is Ayam Cemani. With the exception of its red blood, every other part of this chicken is black, including its tongue, internal organs, bones, skin, and eggs!
“The Goth Chicken”
On a daily basis, however, most urban dwellers are far more likely to run into a pigeon. It’s estimated that there are about 400 million pigeons in the world, most of which live in cities.
Nikola Tesla was famously known to be enamored of the pigeons in his New York neighborhood. He carried a bag of feed with him and made pigeon friends everywhere he went. In his later years, having never married, he made his “feathery tribe” the center of his time and attention.
While he delighted in caring for all sick or injured pigeons, there was one female in particular whom he became obsessed with. When she was injured, he summoned his scientific powers to nurse her back to health. “Using all of my mechanical knowledge I invented a device by which I supported its body in comfort to let the bones heal.”
“I loved that pigeon, I loved her as a man loves a woman, and she loved me. As long as I had her, there was meaning to my life.”
Some write Tesla off as a crazy eccentric, but maybe in some primal way we all feel a kinship with birds.
Humans share about 60 percent of our DNA with all birds. Our arms share the same types of bones as bird wings.
Humerus
Radius
Ulna
Carpals
Metacarpals
Phalanges
Even though mammals have evolved separately from birds for some 300 million years, scientists have found that birds and humans show striking parallels in neurological functioning.
Avian brain mapping demonstrates that different parts of a bird’s brain connect and interact with each other in ways similar to a human brain. For example, in both birds and humans, regions of the hippocampus (the area that is important for navigation and long-term memory) have dense connections to other parts of the brain, which implies that they function similarly.
Despite having small brains, birds have densely packed brain cells. In the parts of the brain where higher cognition takes place, some birds have as many neurons as smaller-brained primates. In other words, some birds have a cognitive skill set that researchers used to think was exclusive only to primates.
A Few Examples of Bird Intelligence
· The Eurasian Magpie passes the mirror test, a tool used to determine self-recognition.
· Crows can distinguish between human faces, and hold a grudge against those who have harmed them in the past.
· Corvids can craft and use tools, like bending a wire into a hook in order to grab something.
· Keas can use self-control and patience when working with a cooperative partner to solve intelligence tests.
But for most of us, it isn’t scientific proof of intelligence that draws us to birds, but something far more primordial. Since ancient times, the flight of birds has lifted our eyes to the skies. Birds have connected us with the rhythms of the Earth: the passage of the day, the changing weather, the coming and going of seasons. They have inspired art and myth-making throughout the ages. Some speculate that human speech and music evolved from birdsong.
For millennia, humans evolved in close contact with birds and all of nature. The word
biophilia (coined by biologist E. O. Wilson) means a love of the living world; it describes the innate emotional bond that humans feel with other forms of nonhuman life. Nature is built into our cellular biology, and some part of us always longs to connect with it, the same way we long to spend time with a dearly loved friend.
In today’s high-tech, rapidly urbanizing world, many people feel deeply disconnected from the natural world—the air, the water, and the land—that sustains us. But the fact is we are always interacting with the wild and mysterious processes of the universe, no matter where we are.
Birds are ambassadors of this seemingly alternative realm of reality. The loud chirping of a bird in a strip-mall parking lot reminds us that the natural world doesn’t end when the city begins: The wilderness is not somewhere “out there”; it’s right here, and we are totally connected to it.
Bird calling out:
“Nature is REAL LIFE!”
Whether you take a cosmic mystical angle or a purely scientific approach, birds are an unending source of fascination. They connect us to who we truly are: members of an infinite, interconnected universe. Birds are good for our souls because they are part of the soul of the world.
Copyright © 2020 by Misha Maynerick Blaise. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
