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it's Thanksgiving time here in the US
which means everyone is talking about
turkeys which is why we here at scishow
are not going to instead today's
compilation features a bunch of other
incredible birds from weird ones that
smell like fruit to the kind of
terrifying ones because once you start
looking you'll find that there are a lot
of amazing species out there but first
up one pretty much all of us think we
know well the humble pigeon though it
turns out pigeons are a lot more
interesting than you probably give them
credit for here's a very young Hank to
explain
we all know the white dove is a symbol
of peace and purity so what the pigeons
symbolize dirt and disease well problem
here pigeons and doves same thing just
turns out one is a slightly better dress
doves and pigeons are both members of
the same family columbidae who's 308
species can be found pretty much any
place on earth except Antarctica and
they come in a variety of sizes and
colors
since the dodo disappeared yes Dodos
were pigeons the turkey sized crowned
pigeon is the biggest of the family
while the sparrow sized a new world
ground of is the smallest now you have
most definitely seen some kind of pigeon
in your life but did you know pigeons
produce milk
they don't lactate like mammals but they
do produce a similar milk like substance
to feed their chicks now if this sounds
bizarre it's because it is all pigeons
do it but they're joined only by
flamingos and male emperor penguins in
this ability crop milk is a fat and
protein rich substance produced by both
male and female pigeon parents the milky
white stuff is churned up in the bird's
crop or throat pouch usually used for
food storage the crop changes in
response to hormones when eggs hatch and
like a memory gland enters a sort of
lactation period pigeon milk contains
tons of antioxidants and plays a key
role in boosting a chick's immune system
much like mammalian breast milk does
also pigeons Bob there heads to see
better lots of birds Bob their heads as
they strut around looking like Mick
Jagger and pigeons are no exception the
head bobbing probably helps the birds
stay balanced on their legs which spring
out fairly far back behind their bodies
but researchers think this kind of
jiving has more to do with stabilizing
their vision we humans can't stabilize
our vision with our eyeballs they stay
in the same place when I move my head
around and unless we're really feeling
the dr.dre we don't need to Bob our
heads while we walk but pigeons have a
harder time multitasking in a busy world
it's easier to observe a moving object
when your head is still so when a pigeon
Bob's its head it's actually holding its
head in place temporarily while its body
moves and then thrusts its head forward
again this keeps the head stable for as
long as possible so the pigeon can keep
an eye out for a squirmy insects or
swooping high
we know this because in the late 1970s
creative ornithologist Barry frost put
some pigeons on a treadmill to see what
happened and in the controlled
surroundings of the lab with no bugs or
birds or prey to watch out for the birds
heads didn't Bob third thing
pigeons are decorated war heroes with
excellent hearing people have been using
homing pigeons to deliver messages for
centuries Persian kings used them Julius
Caesar used them and in World War one
soldiers on the front used them to relay
hundreds of thousands of messages one
famous flyer named share on me single
wing idli saved a battalion of 600
trapped French soldiers flying home with
a missing eye a bullet and it's breast
and a leg dangling by a thread cher
eventually healed and was awarded with
the prestigious Service Cross when he
finally died years later he was stuffed
and mounted and now resides at the
Smithsonian Institution humans have
never quite understood homing pigeons
ability to find their way home across
large distances but a recent theory may
have solved the mystery
USGS researcher Jonathan Hagstrom
believes that the birds use
low-frequency sound waves to create a
sort of acoustic map by which to
navigate home pigeons can hear down to
the faintest of infrasound noises down
to even about 0.1 Hertz whereas even
under the best laboratory conditions
humans can't hope to hear under 12 Hertz
backstrom got the idea that the birds
used sound frequencies when he noticed
raising pigeons going astray
whenever the supersonic Concorde jet was
flying nearby the Jets sonic
interference was disorienting the
pigeons weather landscape and
atmospheric changes can also lead the
birds astray so yeah pigeons turns out
they're pretty rads be nice
looks like I need to give pigeons a bit
more credit though if we're gonna give
them credit for awesome hearing this
next bird should get some kind of metal
or something because it uses its stellar
hearing to see Hank tell everyone about
the incredible oil bird
in the tropical rainforests of South
America there's a flying animal that
lives in colonies in caves emerges at
night in search for food and navigates
using echolocation and I'm not talking
about a bat believe it or not I'm
actually talking about a bird the
bizarre oil bird known to locals as the
Guara oil birds diverged from their
closest living relatives 50 million
years ago and in a lot of ways they've
become more like bats than other birds
they roost high up in caves for example
one oil bird colony can include as many
as 20,000 crow sized birds and since
there's not a lot of nesting material
available in a cave they build their
funnel shaped nests out of a mixture of
regurgitated fruit and their own feces
sounds cozy
yeah and like a lot of nocturnal animals
including many bats for the record they
have excellent night vision they
accomplished that by packing their
retinas with rods the light receptor is
responsible for vision in dim lighting
in fact oil bird retinas have the
highest density of rods of any known
vertebrate 1 million of them per square
millimeter your retina has a max of
about 150,000 rods per square millimeter
these birds have so many rods that
there's almost no room left over for
cones the other light receptors which
handle visual acuity and color that
means that their view of the world is
probably fuzzy and dull even the world
record holder for rod density needs some
light to see though so that bird's eyes
are no help in pitch-black caverns which
might be why they're the only birds that
have figured out how to echolocate to
keep from getting confused in a densely
populated cave each bird clicks at a
slightly different frequency and unlike
bats oil birds clicks are audible to
human ears so if you were standing in
one of these caves when the birds return
to rest you'd hear quite the cacophony
oil birds resemblance to bats is a
classic example of convergent evolution
where different animals facing similar
pressures from natural selection end up
with similar traits they're so bad like
that you would think we'd called them
bat birds but if you're wondering where
that name came from yes there's a story
there oil bird comes from the fact their
favorite food is the fatty fruit of the
oil Paul baby oil birds in particular
become so plump from their
rich diet that indigenous people in
Venezuela used to collect chicks so they
could render their fat in pots to use as
fuel you know the more I think about the
more I like bat birds instead maybe it's
time for like a rebranding
while we're on the subject of birds that
have mastered darkness let's talk about
owls owls have evolved some pretty
impressive adaptations to rule the night
and here's oh look it's Hank again with
the details
as animals go Al's are pretty awesome I
mean just look at Hedwig there are about
200 owl species on earth and you'll find
them on every continent except
Antarctica they can be as small as the
sparrow sized elf owl or as huge the
Eagle sized Great Grey and most are
nocturnal loners with broad heads an
upright stance big front-facing eyes and
gnarly talons many cultures associate
owls with either wisdom or death and
though they aren't quite as bright as
some other birds like crows or Ravens
the death thing might not be so far off
because if there's one thing Al's are
really good at it is killing things
quietly you might even say that that the
ninjas of the bird world equipped with
some unique adaptations to make them
experts at both hunting and getting
their creep on let's start with their
feathers for example maybe you've been
out walking at some point and you heard
some whooshing sound only look up and
see a bird flying overhead well odds are
that was not an owl making that noise
most birds have smooth sleek primary
feathers which create a new easy kind of
turbulence as their wings collide with
the air and that's fine if you're a
plant-eating goose or say a falcon who's
so fast it doesn't matter if your prey
hears you're coming because they're
already toast but to a night hunting owl
catching dinner is all about stealth so
their feathers are specially adapted to
reduce that air turbulence and the noise
that comes with it instead of a smooth
stiff leading edge and owls primary
feathers look more like combs those
serrated edges actually break up the air
as it hits the wings creating a bunch of
smaller less noisy disturbances in the
air and even those get muffled by a
softer fringe at the trailing edge of
the wing but owls also come equipped
with an extra silencer they're smaller
down feathers which absorb whatever
noise is left over magic feathers are
awesome in all but probably the first
thing you'll notice about an owl are
their ridiculously huge front-facing
eyes which can weigh up to 5% of their
body weight all the better to see you
with because most owls are nocturnal
their eyes need to be good at processing
whatever light is available so allies
have large corneas and pupils that allow
extra light to enter the eye and funnel
back into the image forming retina and
compared to many other birds owl retinas
contain more of the light-sensitive rods
that help them see in low-light
conditions plus the front facing set up
let's Al's look forward with both eyes
giving them a wider range of binocular
vision than most birds it also helps
them judge distance and dimensions
like how humans do it so it is not easy
to squeeze such big eyes into a
comparatively small skull so allies
aren't round like a typical eyeball
instead they're more elongated in tube
shaped they're also fixed into their
sockets by rings of bone called
sclerotic rings which means owls can't
roll their eyes and if they want to look
to the side they have to turn their
whole head that said contrary to popular
belief no owl can go full Linda Blair
and rotate their head all the way around
though they can rotate them
three-quarters of the way in either
direction which is still pretty
impressive
I mean imagine looking to your right by
turning your head all the way to your
left it's hard to picture for a good
reason because if you tried it you would
either cut off the flow of blood to your
brain and have a stroke tear an artery
or simply snap your neck
and in any of those cases you would be
dead so you know don't try it but how
come Al's can do that well for starters
they have more vertebrate in their necks
14 compared to our seven and their heads
are connected to their necks by just one
pivot joint as opposed to our to this
single joint gives the bird's head much
more flexibility allowing it to pivot
its head on the vertebral column sort of
like how you can pivot your body on one
foot those neck bones also feature extra
large holes about 10 times larger than
the artery that passes through them and
probably hold air sacs that help cushion
that fragile artery while the owl twists
its neck so it doesn't tear but in 2012
a research team from Johns Hopkins
discovered that there's more to the owl
neck rotation puzzle they found that
while most animals arteries typically
get smaller the farther they are from
the heart an owl's main neck artery
actually gets a little bigger as it
nears the brain ballooning out those
larger areas might act as reservoirs
storing a little extra blood to send to
the brain when the main vessel gets
temporarily blocked during more extreme
neck rotation so here's to Hedwig and
all her other fellow owls master ninja
birds of the night as cool as night
ninjas are the birds in our next episode
have mastered an impressive hunting
trick we once thought was unique to our
species they use fire to capture their
prey seriously and here's stefan to tell
us about nature's arsonists the fire
Hawks
it's no secret that birds can be pretty
smart you've probably heard of birds
using tools or solving puzzles but in
Australia they take things to the next
level there some birds are said to
intentionally start fires making them
the only animals besides humans known to
do that most animals don't like being
near fire the standard instinct around
flames is to drop what you're doing and
run but some birds of prey do just the
opposite if they spot a wildfire they'll
actually fly towards it they've figured
out that fire causes little critters to
panic and flee making them easy targets
as long as the birds are careful not to
get burned a fire can mean an easy meal
this incredible behavior is called fire
foraging and it's been seen in predatory
birds around the world but in Australian
tropical savannas some birds seem to
take this strategy a step further
they're known as fire Hawks because
they're said to fly into active fires
carry away a burning stick in their beak
or talons and then drop it into dry
brush to start a totally new fire
there's a lot we don't know about this
avian arson it's never been reliably
captured on photo or video but the
stories traced back generations around
the world there are human cultures that
have lived alongside native wildlife for
hundreds or thousands of years and these
cultures can be a valuable source of
what's called indigenous ecological
knowledge and a 20-17 study set out to
collect this local knowledge most
stories identify three species as the
arsonists black kites
whistling kites and brown Falcons though
there may be other birds that do it too
and the team found that at least 12
different ethnic aboriginal groups
reported first-hand knowledge of fire
spreading in these birds there even in
some of their religious ceremonies one
account goes as far as to suggest that
early Aboriginal people may have learned
the trick of fire foraging by watching
the birds the study also collected
observations from non Aboriginal people
including modern-day firefighters as you
can imagine birds that can start fires
could be a real pain if your job is to
control blazes so local firefighters are
often on the lookout for the birds one
firefighter reported an instance where
he spent an afternoon putting out seven
different fires started by kites and
another witnessed a group of birds start
a fire that burned so out of control
that had damaged a local cattle station
in total the study found accounts of
fire spreading from West Australia
Queensland and the Northern Territory a
total area of thousands of square
kilometers so it may not be video
footage but it's pretty comprehensive
ethanol ornithological evidence that is
cultural knowledge of birds the behavior
still hasn't been scientifically
observed and documented so the
researchers aren't done yet they plan to
conduct more interviews set up field
experiments and equip local Rangers with
the tools to catch the birds in the act
and all that will hopefully reveal how
often the birds start fires and how
firefighters can best plan around the
behavior and it may even help
researchers figure out how they learn to
do it in the first place
fire Hawk will forever be the most
hardcore name ever given to a bird it's
just so metal even though they're kind
of sweet compared to the birds in the
next episode goals yes those big things
that like to steal food from your Beach
picnics if you thought they were just
annoying well Hank has some news for you
when you're out enjoying like a nice
picnic on the beach you might
occasionally find a gull trying to grab
some of your chips and you like it just
stop bothering us you know we'll just
imagine for a moment that instead of
your picnic basket those goals we're
after you're your flesh because one
particular species of goal has recently
developed a taste for live mammal meat
revealing just how adaptable these
animals are most girls eat fish or
invertebrates like crabs though they'll
occasionally snack on carcasses if they
wash up they're considered generalist
opportunistic feeders they'll pretty
much take whatever they can get but in
the past 50 years or so one species the
kelp gull has developed a fondness for
mammalian flesh and learned just how to
get it it all started in Peninsula
Valdes Argentina a birthing ground for
southern right whales giving birth is
exhausting for everyone involved so both
new mamas and their babies like to relax
and rest near the ocean surface and
that's precisely when the gulls attack
these half a metre long roughly one
kilogram Birds land on the whales backs
and peel off pieces of skin until the
wound becomes big enough that they can
dig into the blubber underneath gross
and mean they mostly attack calves
because the babies haven't learned how
to arch their back or flick the goals
off like their moms have but what's
really terrifying is that the gulls
hunger for flesh is growing stronger
between 2003 and 2014 more than 50
calves died per year on average in
Valdez compared to only 8 per year in
the decade before people aren't 100%
certain that all those deaths were
caused by gulls but scientists have
noted an increase in the number and
severity of attacks a percentage of
Wales with gull inflicted wounds rose
from 2% in the 1970s to a gruesome 99%
of the 2000s according to a 2015 plus
one study and the situation is now so
bad that the goals are considered a
significant threat to right whale
populations in the area these guys got
too smart
so since 2012 local governments have
been culling some of the murder birds to
try and protect the whales but it's not
just Argentinian whales that have to
keep an eye on the skies health goals in
Namibia
have recently discovered a taste for
baby fur seal eyeballs like something
out of Alfred Hitchcock's the birds the
gulls will repeatedly swoop down and
peck at the eyeballs of unattended Cape
fur seal pups until the pups go blind
once they're unable to see more gulls
joining the feast and peck at the juicy
way I'm just gonna stop I'm gonna read
what the script even says it's too sad
let's just say the pups don't make it
and since we've only known that gulls
are preying on seal pups since 2014 no
one knows yet if seal numbers will be
affected these chilling behaviors likely
developed in part because gulls have
such a generalist diet but also because
they're quite good at observational
learning meaning they can learn new
behaviors just from watching other gulls
so just a few likely discovered that
squishy eyeballs and hunks of blubber
are great sources of protein fat and
fluid and others quickly caught on to
the new snacks which explains why the
behaviors are pretty much only seen in
the same areas they began though they
could spread and we might also be to
blame for the increase in the gulls
murderous behavior because of our
activities their usual prey is harder to
come by
but this hasn't hurt their numbers as
these flexible Birds have learned that
our refuse is full of potential food so
unlike many species they do well in the
places we've figuratively and literally
trashed I guess we should count
ourselves lucky that they haven't
figured out what human eyeballs taste
like yet just have it have a chip have a
chip it's fine you can have my chips
well it looks like I'm never going to
the beach again I need a bit of a palate
cleanser after that horror show so how
about some pretty fragrant sea birds Lee
definitely not goals in the next episode
have a delightful scent to them but
enough for me
I'll let Hank explain what's going on
on the remote rocky islands of the North
Pacific you might find a happy looking
little bird called the crested auklets
it looks kind of like a cross between a
penguin and a quail they live in big
dense noisy colonies and they go out to
the ocean to feed they also apparently
smell like tangerines the smell which
has been described as distinctive and
pungent emerges at the beginning of the
breeding season as for what's actually
causing it the smell seems to come from
a mix of compounds secreted by a patch
of special hair like possibly hollow
feathers called wick feathers found on a
particular area of skin on their back it
has got a little tangerine patch back
there the mix of compounds is dominated
by aldehydes a kind of chemical that
contains a carbon bonded to a hydrogen
and double bonded to an oxygen as for
why there are two hypotheses one is that
the smelly aldehydes might be a way for
the birds to repel parasites like lice
kind of like a built-in canna bug spray
experiments have shown that some of the
compounds in the smell can repel or
paralyze ticks or lice the other idea is
that it might be some kind of sexual
display or some other sort of social
signal during courtship crested auklets
approached potential mates and bury
their bill in that patch in what's known
as a rough sniff and they can definitely
smell it studies have shown that the
birds can tell the scent apart from
other smells and even appeared to be
attracted to it when presented with a
smelly fake bird which is kind of neat
because for a long time many experts
thought birds couldn't really smell
things that idea was debunked by
scientists in the 1960s and that
research doesn't have much of anything
to do with crested auklets but as a myth
it's had surprising staying power it
might seem kind of funny but choosing
the smelliest mate might have some
benefits if the scent is a parasite
repellent for example a smelly mate is
less likely to pass infestations to
their mate or their offspring the smell
might also be an indicator of how
healthy the animal is in general its
body has to produce those smelly
chemicals which requires energy and
because all smells eventually fade over
time an animal that depends on cologne
to win a mate has to keep making new
compounds all the time which means it
has the energy to burn to make smelly
molecules even though those reefs
could be used for other more survival
oriented things this means for crested
auklets a strong scent might be a way to
show that you're not only healthy but
you have the resources to burn and
finally let's talk about birds that can
talk like us
parrots ability to speak is really
impressive and olivia is here to explain
how they manage to do this thing that
even our closest relatives can't do
parents have an uncanny ability to mimic
human speech they're mad vocal skills
have let them co-host TED Talks sing in
heavy metal bands and made them the pet
of choice to deliver punchlines in
pirate movies part of this is just being
able to make the sounds that we do
parrots have articulate tongues which
can move around in their mouths and
shift frequencies to make human-like
vowel sounds but mostly parrots have
unique brains when the majority of birds
chirp or sing they're making noises that
are hardwired but parrots can create new
vocalizations which scientists call
vocal learning not only that but
something about their neurons make them
incredibly good at vocal mimicry
replicating the sounds or calls of other
species only three types of birds are
capable of vocal learning hummingbirds
songbirds and parrots scientists don't
know exactly how vocal learning helps
them but freestyling might let different
groups of birds tell each other apart
which could help them identify enemies
and form strong social bonds despite
being very different birds
hummingbirds songbirds and parrots all
have seven clusters of neurons in their
brain called song nuclei since other
birds don't have these brain regions
scientists think they've got to be
behind vocal learning the song nuclei
are surrounded by or next to parts of
the brain that control movement the ones
involved in learning are towards the
front of the brain and those involved in
sound production are farther back but
just having song nuclei doesn't explain
why parrots are so much better at well
parroting speech now most research on
mimicry and parrots uses the common
parakeet or budgie as a model for the
whole group but in 2015 researchers took
a look at the brains of a bunch of
different parrots and found that they
all had something that hummingbirds and
songbirds didn't an extra layer or shell
surrounding each nucleus it's a bit like
the candy coating on a skittle parrots
have the full candy while other birds
just have the fruity core and
differences in the amount of shells seem
to correlate to mimicking abilities
expert imitators like the African Grey
parrot have much larger shell regions
and smaller cores than copycats who are
less skilled like budgies and peach face
lovebirds so far it's just a correlation
so these shells may not be the reason or
the only reason why parrots are super
mimics not to mention scientists don't
know how the shells function right now
although they know that the shells
linked to each other and make different
connections
the course based on similarities and the
types of genes expressed in each brain
region scientists think that this double
layered song system may have come about
because song nuclei got duplicated more
than 29 million years ago we humans
didn't gain our refined linguistic
abilities until millions of years later
so when it really comes down to it
who's mimicking whom
thanks for learning about these amazing
birds with me we'd love to hear about
which was your favorite and why in the
comment section also since it's the last
week of November I want to remind you
that it's the last week to get this
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you want this one either for yourself or
a space fan in your life you'd better
get yours soon just head over to
dftba.com and search for the scishow pin
of the month or peruse that merch bar
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