I’m Freezing, I Wish I was a Bird
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Why would someone complaining about a frigid January Minnesota day be wishing they were a bird? Don’t birds stay out all day and night, don’t they freeze to death?
That’s exactly my point; why don’t birds freeze to death while I know I would, even with all my gloves and jackets. Birds fly high and don’t seem to freeze even on a windy -5 degrees F winter morning.
This morning, the temperature must have been around -5 degrees F and on while I was commuting to work I observed birds in the sky. It dawned on me, why don’t birds’ blood freeze. I know I’d freeze if I was out long enough.
After a few minutes googling my question, I found an answer. Birds don’t freeze because there are a variety of adaptations that let birds survive and even thrive in cold weather.
While a few smaller birds enter a nightly torpor, reducing their body temperature to limit heat loss to the cold night air, others utilize elaborate mechanisms to generate and save heat. It turns out that most birds shiver in the cold! .. Oh my, that sounds like me.
In order to maintain their body temperature and remain warm while in flight, birds must also shiver almost continuously to generate extra body heat.
Some birds, like goldfinches and redpolls, grow more feathers in winter and fluff them out in the cold for added insulation. Goldfinches were found to produce five and a half times as much heat as usual by shivering.
One question remains, does shivering annoy birds as much as it annoys me? unfortunately, this question cannot be googled.
Read more here:
http://www.exn.ca/Stories/1997/02/11/02.asp
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E07EED8103CF931A25751C0A9649C8B63
http://www.birdnote.org/birdnote.cfm?id=491
March 31st, 2008 at 11:59 am
Ya bet.. Minnesota is so cold. Those birds are tough though.
I was expecting an article on Blogging or Web Development and found this, yet it was very intriguing.
Thank you.