Why Do Birds Have Feathers?

Feathers are birds most important feature since, unlike birds, no other animal possesses them. The first living beings to develope feathers did so 150 million years ago. Archaeopterix is the best example.

Its skeleton was more similar to that of reptiles, with teeth and a tail, something that no bird has. But the sternum lacked the keel shape that birds have today, so they could not have the muscles necessary to fly. However, its feathers were identical to those we know today.

Feathers come in many shapes, sizes and colors. But in general, they all share a similar structure. They display a hollow longitudinal axis called rachis onto which the barbs are inserted from the surface of the feather.

Seen through the microscope, these barbs branch into barbules which are interlocked like a zipper. Confronted with such complexity, one question arises: What is the purpose of feathers?

It may seem obvious that the role of the feathers is to enable flight. They are rigid, lightweight, with an unbeatable aerodynamic shape. But are they good for something else?

Yes, most definitely.

When temperatures drop, feathers separate trapping air in-between them. This air is kept warm and acts as an insulating layer that prevents heat loss. This mechanism is so effective that even we humans use it in the manufature of coats and quilts.

Feathers are also waterproof. They provide protection against rain so that the animal doesn't get cold. For waterfowl, impermeability must be total, since they are in constant contact with water. If the body was to get wet, the bird would quickly cool down and might die.

The case of cormorants illustrates this point. Their plumage is not completely water proof, so when they get into the water their feathers get soaked. They absorb so much water that the weight makes their take-off to fly too difficult.

The solution that cormorants find to this conundrum is as uncomfortable as effective: they spread their wings and dry them in the sun. Sometimes shaking also helps.

For owls, the noise caused by flying could easily become a problem. But the surface of their feathers is smooth and hairy. In addition, small teeth in the front border lower the friction between them. This is how they manage to fly silently and are able to hunt without being detected.

All these essential functions make feathers a treasure to take care of. Frequent toileting and bathing are essential.

But no matter how much they care for them, feathers are made up by dead cells and keratin. They will wear off over time: the old must be discarded and replaced with new ones.

Birds of prey cannot afford to have their ability to fly undermined since they depend on it for hunting. This is the reason why they change their feathers in an orderly fashion throughout a two -year period. Thus, there can be three generations of feathers co-existing at any one time in the same animal.

Ducks are an altogether different case. These birds change their flight feathers all at once during the so-called "molting" period. Unable to fly, they look for the protection of large groups in remote locations.

The reason ducks lose all their feathers at once is that they change them twice a year. And so they have winter plumage, in which male and female are almost indistinquishable... and a summer plumage in which the male is totally different.

Be it as it may, all birds shed their feathers and leave them behind wherever they go. It is time we begin to regard feathers not as waste, but as the engineering feat they really are.

Article courtesy of www.wild-bird-watching.com



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The Bird House - Nature in Your Own Back Yard

Want to enjoy nature more? Do you love the beauty of nature? Many, many people do. They enjoy going to an aquarium, the local zoo and even the pet store. Hiking, climbing or perhaps a car ride are wonderful ways to be a part of nature.

But is there a way to enjoy nature in ones own backyard? How about getting a bird house. A bird house is not only a great addition to ones yard but for very little money can bring the excitement of nature home. And if it's in our own back yard we can enjoy it anytime; right?

How to Pick Out a Bird House

The size of the yard is a main consideration when picking out a bird house. Simply the larger the yard the larger the bird house can be (or the more bird houses can be used). Too large a bird house for the space can result in too much nature. Of course personal preference always reigns. For instance, it may or may not be your preference to have the bird house close to your patio. Many people enjoy them near the patio because the maid or gardener will clean up after the birds; but, on the other hand, others don't seem to have this kind of help and depend on their cat. Something to think about.

Where you plan to put the bird house is another major consideration. If the spot is pre-existing, such as a tree, the spot may determine size. If it is to be free standing then the size can vary with taste.

The next consideration about size goes to the bird seed budget. Since part of the use for a bird house is to feed the birds the cost of the bird seed can become a factor. Chances are the bigger the bird house or the more bird houses you have the more bird seed used and the more expense involved.

After making a size decision, model comes next. The style of house can be determined by the kind of bird you want to attract. Of course, the type of bird seed you use will attract different birds. Most pet or bird stores have a wide variety of seed mixes that will attract different birds. But remember you will only attract first the birds that are common to your area so plan accordingly and remember that certain birds like certain types of houses and seed.

Now the fun part comes in. Once the bird house is installed and filled with seed it is time to watch and enjoy. The wide variety of species that are attracted by regular bird seed is always a surprise.

Some More Options

Build your own. Many people don't like the commercial options available or think they are boring. Design your own or buy a set of plans? Elaborate or simple? Bird houses can be built to whatever size, style and design excites you. Not only is a bird house for the birds but it is also for the people who enjoy them. However you choose to go, once the bird house is done, nature and beauty brought close to home can be enjoyed by everyone.

If you are looking for general or specific bird house information we would love to have you come visit us at the Bird House Company

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Marcus Coates "Dawn Chorus"

People were filmed at dawn in their 'natural habitats' - and made to warble and tweet like birds for Marcus Coates' video installation Dawn Chorus. Viv Groskop finds out why.

This is Yellowhammer," says Marcus Coates excitedly, pointing at a video of a man with a paunch reading a newspaper over breakfast. Suddenly, the man's eyes dash from side to side. His chest twitches up and down, and he bursts into an orgy of twittering and tweeting. "He sat there singing for an hour and 10 minutes," says Coates. "Watch: his mannerisms are so bird-like."

Yellowhammer is one of a cast of characters Coates has created for an extremely odd video installation, to be shown at Baltic in Gateshead next month. Dawn Chorus, which recreates the sound of birdsong using human voices, is an ambitious project, with scientific as well as artistic goals - medical research charity the Wellcome Trust sponsored him, and the birdsong has been archived for researchers.

Coates will go to extreme lengths to get what he wants. For Dawn Chorus, he spent a week camping with a wildlife sound recordist, Geoff Sample. The pair lived in a motorhome in Northumberland, getting up at 3am to activate a 24-track digital recorder. They collected 576 hours of birdsong in all - robins, whitethroats, wrens, blackbirds, songthrushes, yellowhammers, greenfinches. Coates says he became obsessed with Sample's ability to tell birds apart - not just by species, but individually. "He'll say, 'Oh, that's that robin doing a bit of blackcap.' He knows birds by the way they start or finish a phrase. We had two robins - I can't tell them apart, but Geoff can."

On their final morning, they placed microphones around a patch of woodland, hoping to capture the song of 14 individual birds at dawn. Then, back in his Bristol studio, Coates slowed the recordings down by up to 16 times, making the birdsong sound like a conversation between the Clangers. He recruited a choir to sing, whine and groan along to these strange sounds while being filmed at dawn in their own "natural habitat" - in the bath, in a taxi, in the kitchen. When the film is speeded up, the "birdsong" comes to life, the subjects twittering away like real birds. Blue Tit is a woman lying in bed, fluttering her eyes and whistling through a puckered mouth. Linnet is an osteopath, nodding and blinking furiously and puffing up his chest in his consulting room.

Most of the subjects are amateur singers from Bristol, hand-picked at choir rehearsals. Chaffinch is Pearl Conway, 62, a nurse at the burns unit in Bristol's Frenchay Hospital and a member of a ladies' barbershop choir, the Avon Belles; she is pictured cheeping away in a hospital waiting room. "Some of the notes were tricky," she says, "but I gave it my best shot. It did go on: it lasted about an hour."

"It was quite meditative," says Blackbird, aka Piers Partridge (yes, that's his real name), a musician from Bristol who was filmed in his garden shed. "I found myself going deeper and deeper into the quality of the sound." Partridge found that he could predict where the "Clanger" sounds were going. "The blackbird had one or two favourite riffs, so I'd think, 'OK, here he goes.' I imagined myself as a blackbird on a spring morning, very early in a high place, having that freedom not to think but just to let the sound come out. With that came some interesting movements - I was cocking my head to look around. I felt really spaced out. When it finished I was miles away."

Coates, 38, is getting something of a reputation as a one-off. His work has been described as quintessentially British, focused on the boundary between the human and the animal. For his best-known piece, Journey to the Lower World (2005), he dressed as a stag and performed a shamanic ritual for the residents of a condemned tower block in Liverpool. Next month he will dress as a badger for a similar ritual at the Hayward Gallery in London. His 40-minute film A Guide to the British Non-Passerines (2001) has him mimicking 97 bird species, and for a photographic project, Goshawk, he strapped himself 20ft up a tree in an attempt to become a rare bird of prey.

Coates' projects seem half-jokey, half-serious; he talks with intense passion about each of them, but is quick to point out their ridiculous elements. This seems to be part of the experiment: it's as much about discomfort and the surreal as about animal metamorphosis. His ideas evoke a child-like desire to "become" an animal or a bird and, strange as they are, they are oddly moving.

He trained as a painter at the Royal Academy of Art, and says he has been fascinated by British birds and wildlife since childhood. "I grew up in Harpenden, in suburbia, so wildlife was always this exotic thing because it was so limited. There was a tiny wood next to our house and my brother and I would see these birds and go home and draw them. We'd always think we'd seen a honey buzzard and it would turn out to be a crow. I thought for a long time being an artist was about making art, but in fact it's about representing what you are passionate about."

Coates' installation should sound like the original dawn chorus: the screens playing the music will be placed in exactly the same positions as the microphones in the wood where the birdsong was recorded. Coates says he hopes to apply the method again: he recently went to Japan to experiment with Japanese birds and singers. But the Baltic exhibition, he feels, is quintessentially British, because of our attachment to wildlife. "It's outside the human lifestyle because we get up too late," he says. "I wanted to create something you could experience again and again"

Dawn Chorus by Marcus Coates is at Baltic, Gateshead, from February 14 to March 18; and at The Festival of Birds at St George's, Bristol, on March 24.

To watch a clip of Dawn Chorus and hear the original recordings, go to www.guardian.co.uk/arts

Article written by Viv Groskop


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