we're gonna go over some skeletons we're gonna go over some birds but most of all we're gonna
go over wings so birds aren't too different from us if you really really look at them but they are
definitely more different than mammals because we are mammals obviously we're closer to the regular
mammal but birds actually aren't as different as you might think when it comes to our skeletons so
the main difference is that the arms become wings and then there are larger shifts in the skeleton
so it's not as cohesive as mammals are but the skeletons are quite similar so let's take a look
at them so if we look at the bird compared to the human the biggest difference that you might notice
obviously is that the rib cage is all the way down here this is the rib cage of the bird this is our
rib cage the biggest difference is this big shape right here this shape on us that's the sternum
right the sternum it's like a giant chest plate all right that's been brought down on the bird
so the bird sternum is all the way down here while ours is right here obviously we got the
spine the spine starts up here for the neck same place over here for us they've got a little bit
of an extension of their tailbone ours just stays the same and this is their pelvis which is all the
way down here ours is right here overall though generally the same and another thing you'll notice
humans are plantigrade right so we have the heel of our foot all the way down on the ground but
birds think of this as their knee this is the heel back here and these are the toes birds
are digitigrade digitigrade means they stand on their toes compared to us who stand on the heels
of our feet so their anatomy is slightly shifted think of this as their like heel of the foot and
this is their knee but overall very very similar there's another thing i want to mention the shape
of wings let's talk a little bit about that if we look at a person's hand let me draw just like
a standard way too fast drawing of an arm let's say that this is a person how you can translate
this to a wing as if it's the same structure the thumb is still there by the way and we'll get over
that when we look at the skeleton a little bit further in the wings but think of the fingers as
if they've extended all the way down here if we kind of take a look here at this skeleton you've
got to think of them as if they only have like two fingers right here this is like their index this
is like their middle finger and this is the thumb right so they do have fingers it's just a little
bit different than ours so you can always think of your wings as like an arm with really long fingers
it's the exact same shape it's just that the fingers are a lot longer same deal with you know
dragons and bats right but this time they do have other fingers i think they only got four though
so you can extend your fingers like that it's almost like you're spreading them out a little
bit further and you just got to put the flaps of skin between them and you got a perfectly good bat
dragon wing but straight up this is how wings work right if you want to
translate it from bird to a person so let's talk a bit about feathers because there are
lots of different types of feathers let me draw my very general looking wing
when you are drawing wings overall there are a good like three to four different layers of
feathers we're gonna be drawing the outer side of the wings right so the back of the
wings not the inside the inside is really like these main feathers here and then there's like
covering right that's like feathery down these big feathers that are on the outside here they
kind of end around here these feathers are your primary feathers so these ones at the tip of the
wings are the primary feathers let's go into these next sets down here so this is like the
joint the second joint right if this is where the hand starts this is now the forearm going in there
we'll say that this is the quote-unquote forearm bit of the wing these are your secondary feathers
and the next set closer to the inside that are all kind of layered very very close together
this is what kind of helps the transition from the from the body to the wing these are your tertiary
feathers so those are the most important ones if you think of an airplane these secondary feathers
are what help the birds steer right most of the time these ones are what help them hover i believe
so the next one these ones these inner ones right here these are your primary coverts and then
there's a little row of feathers kind of right here it's like three of them there's like three
feathers right here that kind of overlay like that these are the alula these are the feathers that
are attached to the quote-unquote thumb of the bird right so if you can think of like again that
hand these are the feathers that are attached to the thumb and the rest of them is the hand
so you can kind of think of it like that so we have our secondary feathers here above the
secondary feathers there's a bunch of different layers of feathers here there's maybe one
and then there's two and then there's three all of these extra ones in here is our secondary coverts
they all technically have names i'm not gonna go over them they're all the secondary coverts
it's just they all have another word in front of them each time and then the final layer of
feathers that i am going to talk about kind of layers like that something like that and these
are the scapulars so these are your feathers that generally come onto a bird that you see
on ninety percent of birds obviously they don't look exactly like this there's more uh nuance
to them but the structure is generally the same sometimes depending on the type of feather they'll
be bigger or smaller but yeah so all feathers of the wing contribute to helping a bird fly
and the size and position will change based on the wing type and the type of bird but overall
kind of the same alright now let's get into the wings so this is the part that i like when we talk
about all these fun kinds of wings because i love drawing wings so let's talk about all those wings
there are five different types of wing shapes number one are your passive soaring wings
they have really long primary feathers and the slots there are slots in these feathers so there
are spaces between these primary feathers and those help these birds catch thermals
or columns of hot air that kind of come up from the ground and this allows the bird to soar just
a little bit higher kind of like a glide suit but there's another type of wing that it mimics
that a little bit better um so these passive soaring wings are generally had by eagles hawks
vultures and other birds have right but those are kind of the primary ones so let's look at a bird
with those kinds of feathers this is the bearded vulture it's one of the largest vultures and
people like to call it the dragon bird because it looks a lot like a dragon you can see what i mean
by those really big spaces between the feathers right especially over here you can look between
the primaries of this bird and they're really really far apart and that really helps it soar
very very large distances or it helps it soar very very high this bird is also known as the
bone eating bird because it will eat bones this bird is hardcore i love the bearded vulture
all right number two these are active soaring wings so active soaring wings are super super
long and super super narrow these wings help birds to soar for very long periods of time and they're
very dependent on wind currents to fly which is a downside right you'll notice these birds that
have active soaring wings don't flap their wings very often because they are usually depending on
the current that is around them the wind current to help them soar around so the birds that have
these kinds of feathers albatross gulls gannets and often most kinds of seafaring birds so a lot
of birds that you might see by water have active soaring wings and the reason for that is because
usually a lot of great wind currents happen around the water so this next bird is the albatross you
can think of the albatross as a prettier seagull but these things are huge their wingspan i believe
is up to about 20 feet i could be wrong it's a really really long wingspan but you notice
these wings super super long and super super thin and this is what helps it glide very very far
right this length and this thin kind of nature is what allows it to soar for very very long periods
of time and allows it to you know hover very nicely on wind currents the next set of wings we
are going to be talking about are ellipticals so your elliptical wings are best for short
bursts of speed and they allow for really tight maneuvering and fast takeoffs but the speed cannot
be maintained so they can go really fast they can take off really fast and they can maneuver
around things really really easily but their speed cannot be maintained so their speed isn't quite as
they can have really fast takeoffs but they can't keep that speed forever so the birds that have
elliptical wings if you want some more uh wow what's the word examples there we go are crows
ravens blackbirds and sparrows and so on and so forth there are lots of birds that have elliptical
wings and the elliptical bird that we are going to be talking about is the pied crown fun fact this
is a crow that is technically legal to have as a pet so elliptical wings also have that kind of
they can kind of have those spaces between the feathers over here but you'll notice that they're
very flat kind of around the bottom a little more arched on the top right when you look at a lot of
these wings you can probably look up images of them you'll notice that these ones tend to be
a little bit shorter and a little bit plumper these ones tend to be kind of long and intense
and graceful these ones are really really long um but these guys tend to be a little bit shorter
their wings are a little bit stumpier number four high speed wings see your high speed wings are
long and thin but they are not as long as active soaring wings so they're still long but not nearly
as long as like a seagulls wings or something like that and these wings obviously based on
the name they are incredibly fast and they can maintain the speed for long long periods of time
these ones are the swifts ducks falcons turns sandpipers so on and so forth generally
all these little birds you kind of see around you a lot of them tend to be high speed wings this is
the american kestrel really really cute think of like a chibi falcon that's what the kestrel
is it's very small very fluffy the kestrel is one of the fastest birds i think it is a cousin of the
falcon but again right these high speed wings they are quite long compared to the stubby nature of
the elliptical wings right these wings are quite long and thin to help with speed but they aren't
as intense as active soaring wings where they don't need to rely on wind currents quite as much
for their wings the final kind of wing we are talking about is hovering wings see your hovering
wings tend to be very very small and very very quick and the nerves and muscles within this bird
and these wings are adapted for incredibly fast movement so that the bird can hover
right the only way that other birds can hover is if they have a proper gust of wind for it right
active soaring birds can kind of hover in place and really the only bird i think there's more than
this but the only bird that i can really think of that has these wings are hummingbirds and here is
our last bird is the ruby throated hummingbird which is kind of very very common but once again
these wings very very small and very very speedy and they're very very light so that they can move
them very very fast they tend to be kind of in the shape of a triangle of sorts so that's what these
hummingbirds are for but last but not least let's talk about owls owls are a strange exception so
they're kind of in between those two some of them are a little bit more stubby um some of them are
a lot wider but overall they're not 100 able to fit into any of these categories most of the time
so their wing types if you had to guess are probably the most similar to passive soaring
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