Hi, my name is Steve Bush.
I'm going to have a new video with a big announcement next week, but I wanted to take you this week
through some strange questions that I've run into in Google Autocomplete as I've done research
for previous episodes.
So we're going to be typing into the search box right here and we'll see what other people
want to know about birds, and see if we can answer some questions and dispel some myths.
So we start with the base "Can birds..." and then we add a space and we see:
"Can birds smell?"
Answer: probably yes.
I've made a video about that.
"Can birds eat rice?"
Definitely yes.
"Can birds eat bread?"
Yes, but it's probably not healthy for them.
They are adapted to eat more natural foods like seeds, leaves, bugs, and things with
better nutrition.
"Can birds see in the dark?"
Some yes, others no.
"Can birds blink?"
Definitely yes.
"Can birds be afraid of heights?"
That is an excellent question.
I have never once thought of that.
Umm... can birds be afraid of heights?
Maybe?
I guess?
They wouldn't be very good birds, would they?
But I guess that birds that don't fly can be afraid of heights, like penguins and ostriches.
Who knows?
Anyway...
"Can birds drink milk?"
WHY?
Why would they?
No.
They probably can, but they wouldn't have the enzymes to break down a lot of the things
in milk, so they wouldn't get the same nutrition that we would.
Or, you know, people who can digest milk.
"What can birds eat?"
They can eat bread, they can eat rice, they can eat popcorn, but all of those things don't
have a lot of nutrition in them, so it would be better to feed them more healthy foods
like fruits, like grapes, cherries, pumpkin seeds, and chia seeds.
These are all probably great for birds.
Various birds will prefer different things.
Like some birds are actually exclusive fruit eaters and other birds are exclusive seed
eaters, as we learned in our bird beak shape video.
On the other hand, you should probably not give a bird cheese.
That is not a thing that birds eat EVER in their natural environment and they're probably
not going to get as much nutrition as you expect out of it.
And then chocolate is downright dangerous for birds because it can break down into a
stimulant called theobromine, so no chocolate for birds.
Sorry birds.
"Can birds hear?"
Yes, yes birds can hear.
Think about it.
What are birds famous for?
They're famous for singing.
They're not singing for us, they're singing for each other.
They have ears; they can hear.
Also if you want to know more about that, I made a whole video about how birds hear,
where their ears are located, and what kind of frequencies they can hear, so check that
out.
"Can birds love you?"
Aww... can birds love you.
That's nice.
It's hard to know what's going on in a bird's head, but it's nice to think about that.
"Can birds lay eggs without a nest?"
Yes they can.
A nest serves no physical purpose in getting an egg out of a bird, so yes they can lay
eggs without a nest.
"Can birds lay eggs without mating?"
Sometimes yes.
They can go through hormonal changes and spontaneously produce an egg, which is kind of interesting.
Actually, that's one of the things about chickens that make them so useful to humans, is that
they can lay eggs spontaneously every day.
Or, on average every day.
"Can birds lay eggs while flying?"
Hmm.
It's probably happened at some point in history, but honestly, I don't think a bird would ever
choose to do that.
I dunno.
Good question.
I'm going to have to do some more research.
"Can birds not see glass?"
I think we covered this pretty comprehensively in the last video, that you cannot see glass,
I cannot see glass, birds cannot see glass, nobody can see glass.
Because it's glass.
It's transparent.
The lens of the camera that I am staring into is made of glass because it's transparent.
You can't see it............
So no.
No they can't.
"Can birds puke?"
This is a funny thing that a lot of people don't know about birds, which is that puking
is a social bonding thing.
It is a thing that birds do when they are really friends with another bird.
"Can birds read?"
YES!
There was at least one bird that could read.
He was named Alex, he was an African Grey.
He could recognize the numerals 1 through 6.
He had a behavior that he could do where they would ask him to choose which object is larger
or smaller.
He could choose that the numeral for 6 is larger than five items.
If you're just looking at them, you have one item on one tray and five items on the other
tray, but the number 6 represents six things.
That's an abstract leap that we thought that only humans were capable of, but this bird
could totally do it.
About 80% of the time he would choose the number 6 over five items, or any other combination
he would answer correctly.
So yes, there was at least one VERY very clever bird that could read.
And final question, "Can birds in New Zealand fly?"
Except for the Kiwi and penguins, yes.
And I'm going to say there's at least one more bird that can't fly because there probably
is.
But other than that, yes.
And with that, we have learned everything A to Z about what birds can and cannot do.
So I hope you enjoyed this trip through bird Frequently Asked Questions.
Again, I'll be back with a normal video next week but I hope you enjoyed this little experiment.
If you did, feel free to comment below.
I hope you will check out the other videos on this channel because there's a lot to learn
about birds.
I hope you enjoyed this experiment learning about why life is awesome!
Thanks!