Nothing wants to get eaten, including birds.
They have found some amazing ways to avoid predation when they get a chance.
Here's the top 5 ways that birds have found to avoid being eaten.
#5 Cover Predators tend to be larger than the prey
animals they eat, so ducking into a small space like a thick hedge or under some branches
provides a safe way for birds to get away from a predator.
#4 Camouflage Birds have found some amazing ways to camouflage
among their natural environment.
Some birds look like stumps or twigs.
Some birds look like bark.
Some birds look like snow.
I run a game over on Twitter where people try to find the single bird that is hidden
in a big picture with a bunch of leaves.
Sometimes it's almost impossible to find where the bird is hidden.
Here's a few examples: Can you find the bird here?
It's right there!
What about this one?
There it is!
In the same way it's difficult for you to find the birds in those photos, it's difficult
for the predator to find the bird.
#3 White Wingtips This is not a fancy pair of shoes.
This is an actual way to get away from predators.
As a bird takes off you might notice that it has small white feathers on its wingtips
or the tips of its tail.
This is no accident.
When a predator is diving in to catch a bird, the bird can open its wings to fly away and
escape.
The white wingtips pull the predator's eyes off to the side by being flashy and bright.
The predator looks at the edges of the bird, which makes it more difficult to focus on
catching the main body of the bird.
In fact, a lot of prey birds have detachable feathers that will come off if a predator
grabs onto them.
Which means that if a predator grabs those white wing or tail tips the bird can shed
those feathers and fly away.
#2 Flight This is the thing that birds are most famous
for, and it's done for a very good reason.
It's really hard to catch a bird if it's way up in the sky!
Almost all bird physiology is centered around the ability to jump up in the air to safety.
Their bones are light and hollow.
They have air pockets inside of their bodies.
Their feathers are extremely light, and they have huge muscles that propel them up into
the sky.
And the most important way that birds have to avoid being eaten is...
Flocking.
Flocking is staying together with members of the same species, and it helps in SO many
different ways.
For example, if you have lots of members of your species present, all of them can keep
an eye out for predators.
And if any of them sees a predator they can sound the alarm.
So having lots of eyes looking out for things that are dangerous is very helpful.
Another reason that flocking is useful is that individuals can hide in the group.
If a predator is chasing an individual and it's all by itself, it has nowhere to hide.
Strangely enough, though, it can actually hide between other members of its group.
The predator chases one, for example, and that one gets away inside the group.
Then a fresh one can run away as soon as the predator starts chasing it.
Another useful thing that the flock enables is the ability to mob a predator and actually
go on the attack.
So if a predator is chased by lots of little small prey animals it might just run away
in search of an easier meal.
The last thing that a flock enables is the ability to exceed a predator's appetite.
This is a worst-case scenario thing obviously, but if a predator does manage to eat a few
individuals out of the flock, the rest of them are safe to fly away.
This means that they're safe because as a group, most of them did okay, even though
a couple of them had that unfortunate circumstance.
But a predator can only eat so much before it's full, and then the rest of them are safe.
So that wraps it up for the top five ways that birds have found to avoid being eaten.
If you want to learn more about the amazing ways that Life has found to survive on this
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