How often have you seen birds flying in a V formation? Firstly, for some reason, the term for birds flying in such a shape is a murmuration and not a formation. Have you ever wondered why they do it? An interesting fact is that each bird flies slightly higher behind the one in front of it. It reduces the wind resistance, just like racing drivers who drive in each other’s slipstreams.
Furthermore, they take turns to be the leader. When the one in front gets tired, he falls back to rest in another bird’s slipstream. This process helps them fly for longer periods before stopping to rest.
A fascinating fact about cardinals and cigarette butts
Did you know that cardinals use several methods to get rid of lice and excessive dried oil from grooming their feathers? Anting is one method, which involves allowing ants to crawl onto their bodies. They even collect ant corpses to stuff into their feathers. Now get this — if no ants are available, cardinals will collect cigarette butts, coffee grounds and beetles to push into their feathers to do the job.
One fact about a bird weighing less than a U.S. Penny
All 300 different types of hummingbirds are relatively small. Being so little allows them to fly away in the blink of an eye. An interesting fact about the Bee hummingbird, the smallest of this species, is that it weighs 0.5 grams less than one U.S. penny. They weigh in at 2 grams. One ounce equals 28 grams, to give you a better idea of it’s smallness. Therefore, it makes sense that a Bee hummingbird grows no bigger than a bee. I’ve never seen one, have you? However, it is not the smallest bird. Although hummingbirds are the smallest bird species, the Cuban hummingbird is slightly smaller than the Bee hummingbird.
Cartoons misled you on a critical fact about woodpeckers
Do you know why woodpeckers drill holes in trees? Cartoons gave the impression that it is solely to irritate and annoy humans. The truth is that they use their sharp beaks for hollowing out storage space for food. For example, the Acorn woodpecker gathers hazelnuts, almonds, acorns and other sustenance forms to put in their hollowed out food storage pantries.
Why do birds tap on windows?
The window-knocking birds are typically migratory birds. When they arrive in the warmer territories where they spend the summer, they don’t want other birds to share their chosen areas. If one of these feathered friends tap on one of your residence’s windows, he is actually protecting his territory. They’re not picking a fight with you — the bird saw its own reflection in the window and mistook it for a rival bird. It’s actually telling the other bird to get lost. Hence the pecking on the glass window.
