"Bird food plants Bird food plants are certain trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants bear fruits which afford food for birds. These have been discovered by observation, and by the scientific examination of the contents of birds' stomachs. By planting those species, therefore, which have been proved most desirable and that are suited to the climate and soil of the chosen location, birds can be attracted to the vicinity of dwelling houses or to any other desired spot as a copse or shrubbery, or, on the other hand, lured away from valuable orchards, since they appear to like best arid, bitter,"
"It is a part of the digestive tract, essentially an enlarged part of the esophagus. As with most other organisms that have a crop, the crop is used to temporarily store food. Not all birds have a crop. In adult doves and pigeons, the crop can produce crop milk to feed newly hatched birds. Scavenging birds, such as vultures, will gorge themselves when prey is abundant, causing their crop to bulge. They subsequently sit, sleepy or half torpid, to digest their food. Most raptors, including hawks, eagles and vultures (as stated above), have a crop; however, owls do not. Similarly,"
"Hoarding (animal behavior) Hoarding or caching in animal behavior is the storage of food in locations hidden from the sight of both conspecifics (animals of the same or closely related species) and members of other species. Most commonly, the function of hoarding or caching is to store food in times of surplus for times when food is less plentiful. However, there is evidence that some amount of caching or hoarding is done in order to ripen the food, called ripening caching. The term hoarding is most typically used for rodents, whereas caching is more commonly used in reference to birds,"
"collection of food, but also serve as temporary storage and transport. In monkeys of the subfamily of Cercopithecinae, they allow for more predigested food. Cheek pouches contribute to the protection of animals by allowing them to carry their food in the pouches to shelter, allowing them to transport their food to safer locations, as they are pressing these pouches to the back of the mouth with the back of the leg, or moving the jaw. The females of some species of hamster are known to hide their young in their cheek pouches to carry them away when they fear danger."
"inclusive fitness but is consumed by the hoarder or a pilferer for selfish use. These food caches are critical to this species’ winter survival since foraging time is greatly restricted by the few hours of daylight. To securely store food, Siberian jays have developed special saliva glands which they use to form sticky food clumps which they then adhere to beard moss or holes in tree bark; where they are readily accessible throughout the winter. Because of their reliance on food stores during winter, they are territorial birds with reserves scattered around the territory, especially near to the nest. When"
"as fat, cheese, butter and bread. It has even been recorded as taking slaughterhouse offal. Sizeable hard food items like nuts or large insects are wedged into crevices in tree bark and smashed with the strong bill. Plant food is stored year-round, but mainly in autumn. Individual seeds are hidden in cracks in bark, occasionally in walls or in the ground. The food item is usually concealed with lichen, moss or small pieces of bark. The cached food is retrieved in cold weather. Siberian birds store the seeds of the Siberian stone pine, sometimes hoarding enough to last a whole"
"from tree to tree or used to cover a seed cache. All nuthatches appear to store food, especially seeds, in tree crevices, in the ground, under small stones, or behind bark flakes, and these caches are remembered for as long as 30 days. Similarly, the rock nuthatches wedge snails into suitable crevices for consumption in times of need. European nuthatches have been found to avoid using their caches during benign conditions in order to save them for harsher times. Some nuthatches, such as the Eurasian nuthatch and the North American species, have extensive ranges and large populations, and few conservation"
"substantial part of its winter diet, as do acorns and hickory nuts that were stored by the bird in the fall. The nest is in a hole in a tree, and the breeding pair may smear insects around the entrance as a deterrent to squirrels. Adults and young may be killed by hawks, owls, and snakes, and forest clearance may lead to local habitat loss, but this is a common species with no major conservation concerns over most of its range. The nuthatches are a genus, ""Sitta"", of small passerine birds which derive their English name from the propensity of"
"reduce their body temperature by as much as 10 to 12 °C (from their normal temperature of about 42 °C) to conserve energy. Such a capacity for torpor is not very common in birds. Other bird species capable of torpor include the common swift ""Apus apus"", the common poor-will ""Phalaenoptilus nuttallii"", the lesser nighthawk ""Chordeiles acutipennis"", and various species of hummingbirds. These birds are permanent residents, but sometimes they move south within their range, and even outside of it, in the fall or winter. During the winter, chickadees often flock together. Many other species of birds – including titmice, nuthatches,"
"Mass provisioning Mass provisioning is a form of parental investment in which an adult insect, most commonly a hymenopteran such as a bee or wasp, stocks all the food for each of her offspring in a small chamber (a ""cell"") before she lays the egg. This behavior is common in both solitary and eusocial bees, though essentially absent in eusocial wasps. In bees, stored provisions typically consist of masses of mixed pollen and nectar, though a few species store floral oils. In a few cases, such as stingless bees and some sweat bees, the number of cells in a single"
"caching, hoarding supplies of food during the winter. Tits are cavity-nesting birds, typically using trees, although ""Pseudopodoces"" builds a nest on the ground. Most tree-nesting tits excavate their nests, and clutch sizes are generally large for altricial birds, ranging from usually two eggs in the rufous-vented tit of the Himalayas to as many as 10 to 14 in the blue tit of Europe. In favourable conditions, this species had laid as many as 19 eggs, which is the largest clutch of any altricial bird. Most tits are multibrooded, a necessary strategy to cope with either the harsh winters in which"
"roughage, and instead are simply fed meat, they will become seriously ill and unreleasable into the wild. Pellet (ornithology) A pellet, in ornithology, is the mass of undigested parts of a bird's food that some bird species occasionally regurgitate. The contents of a bird's pellet depend on its diet, but can include the exoskeletons of insects, indigestible plant matter, bones, fur, feathers, bills, claws, and teeth. In falconry, the pellet is called a ""casting"". The passing of pellets allows a bird to remove indigestible material from its proventriculus, or glandular stomach. In birds of prey, the regurgitation of pellets serves"
"plump terrestrial birds. They are seed eaters, but will also take insects and similar small prey. They nest on the ground and are capable of short, rapid bursts of flight. Some species, such as the Japanese and common quail, are migratory and fly for long distances. Migrating common quail are known to eat some poisonous seeds with no apparent ill effects but store the poison in their body fat, poisoning people who subsequently eat these birds; this condition is known as ""coturnism"". Old World quail Old World quail is a collective name for several genera of mid-sized birds in the"
"pines. In some regions, where none of these pines occur, the seeds of spruce (""Picea"" sp.) and hazelnuts (""Corylus"" sp.) form an important part of the diet too. The bills of these birds are specialized tools for extracting seeds from pine cones. Surplus seed is always stored for later use, and it is this genus that is responsible for the re-establishment of their favoured pines over large areas either burnt in forest fires or cleared by man. The nutcracker can store as many as 30,000 pine nuts in a single season, remembering the location of as many as 70% of"
"These birds forage on conifer branches or probe into the bark, eating mainly insects and seeds, which may be stored for later use. They often forage in small flocks including other small birds, especially in winter. Often, it is still placed in the genus ""Parus"" with most other tits, but mtDNA cytochrome ""b"" sequence data and morphology suggest that separating ""Poecile"" more adequately expresses these birds' relationships. The American Ornithologists' Union has been treating ""Poecile"" as a distinct genus for some time already. The genus name ""Poecile"" has often been treated as feminine (giving the species name ending ""hudsonica""); however,"
"should be equipped with perches at each end with open space in the middle for flight. Birdcage A birdcage (or bird cage) is a cage designed to house birds as pets. Antique (or antique-style) birdcages are often popular as collectors' items or as household decor but most are not suitable for housing live birds, being too small, improper shape, using unsafe materials or construction. Good quality cages designed for pet birds are more suitable. In general, the larger and the more active the bird, the larger the cage one should use. The amount of time the bird will spend in"
"is the bird's remarkable long-term spatial memory; they are able to relocate caches of seeds with remarkable accuracy, even nine months later, and even when the cache sites are buried under up to a meter (3 ft) of snow. The diet also includes a wide range of insect prey, berries and other fruits, small mammals and occasionally flesh from carcasses. Eggs and nestlings are sometimes devoured, and peanuts and suet have become a favorite at bird tables. Food is taken both from the ground and from trees, where the nutcrackers are very agile among the branches. The birds are able"
"them there. At times, it may hop or run along hunting ground-based food, and occasionally seize flying insects. It generally forages alone, or occasionally in pairs. The pied butcherbird has been observed hunting collaboratively with the Australian hobby, either picking off common starlings or rufous-throated honeyeaters disturbed by the larger hobby, or flushing out small birds from bushes, which the larger bird then hunts. The pied butcherbird sometimes stores food items by impaling them on a stick or on barbed wire, or shoving them in a nook or crevice. Several Australian and international composers have been inspired by and written"
"year. Cached food may sometimes include non-plant material such as pieces of bread, caterpillars and grubs, the larvae being incapacitated by battering. Hoarding is a long-term strategy, stored food items only being consumed when fresh food is hard to find, sometimes up to three months after caching. Birds with good stored food supplies are fitter that those with more limited resources. Beech mast crops vary widely from year to year. Where beech mast is an important part of the diet, adult survival rates are largely unaffected in years with a poor mast crop, but the number of juvenile birds falls"
"hidden within the proctodeum compartment within the cloaca, just inside the vent. The digestive system of birds is unique, with a crop for storage and a gizzard that contains swallowed stones for grinding food to compensate for the lack of teeth. Most birds are highly adapted for rapid digestion to aid with flight. Some migratory birds have adapted to use protein from many parts of their bodies, including protein from the intestines, as additional energy during migration. Birds have one of the most complex respiratory systems of all animal groups. Upon inhalation, 75% of the fresh air bypasses the lungs"
"take a seed in their beak and commonly fly from the feeder to a tree, where they proceed to hammer the seed on a branch to open it. Like many other species in the family Paridae, black-capped chickadees commonly cache food, mostly seeds but sometimes insects also. Items are stored singly in various sites such as bark, dead leaves, clusters of conifer needles, or knothole. Memory for the location of caches can last up to 28 days. Within the first 24 hours, the birds can even remember the relative quality of the stored items. Foraging behaviour in the winter months"
"the nest is on sloping ground. The clutch varies from 2 to 5 eggs, with northern populations tending towards larger clutches. Parent birds run rodent-like in the undergrowth as they move in and out of the nest. Young birds fledge and leave the nest about 12 to 13 days after hatching. Puff-throated babbler The puff-throated babbler or spotted babbler (""Pellorneum ruficeps"") is a species of passerine bird found in Asia. They are found in scrub and moist forest mainly in hilly regions. They forage in small groups on the forest floor, turning around leaf litter to find their prey and"
"Nest box A nest box, also spelled nestbox, is a man-made enclosure provided for animals to nest in. Nest boxes are most frequently utilized for birds, in which case they are also called birdhouses or a birdbox/bird box, but some mammalian species may also use them. Placing nestboxes or roosting boxes may also be used to help maintain populations of particular species in an area. The nest box was invented by the British conservationist Charles Waterton in the early 19th century to encourage more birdlife and wildfowl on the nature reserve he set up on his estate. Nest boxes are"
"the intended species. Nest box A nest box, also spelled nestbox, is a man-made enclosure provided for animals to nest in. Nest boxes are most frequently utilized for birds, in which case they are also called birdhouses or a birdbox/bird box, but some mammalian species may also use them. Placing nestboxes or roosting boxes may also be used to help maintain populations of particular species in an area. The nest box was invented by the British conservationist Charles Waterton in the early 19th century to encourage more birdlife and wildfowl on the nature reserve he set up on his estate."
"Aviary An aviary is a large enclosure for confining birds. Unlike birdcages, aviaries allow birds a larger living space where they can fly; hence, aviaries are also sometimes known as flight cages. Aviaries often contain plants and shrubbery to simulate a natural environment. Large aviaries are often found in the setting of a zoological garden (for example, the London Zoo, the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., and the San Diego Zoo). Spacious walk-in aviaries also exist in bird parks such as Jurong BirdPark in Singapore. Pittsburgh is home to the USA's National Aviary, perhaps the most prominent example in North"
"large seeds ""P. albicaulis"" and ""P. flexilis"", but also using other high-altitude species like ""P. balfouriana, P. longaeva"" and ""P. monticola"". During migrations to lower altitudes, it also extensively uses the seeds of pinyon pines. The isolated Cerro Potosí population is strongly associated with the local endemic Potosi pinyon ""Pinus culminicola"". All Clark's Nutcrackers have a sublingual pouch capable of holding around 50–150 seeds, depending on the size of the seeds; the pouch greatly enhances the birds' ability to transport and store seeds. Clark's nutcrackers store seeds, usually in the ground for later consumption, in caches of 1–15 seeds (average"
"Birdcage A birdcage (or bird cage) is a cage designed to house birds as pets. Antique (or antique-style) birdcages are often popular as collectors' items or as household decor but most are not suitable for housing live birds, being too small, improper shape, using unsafe materials or construction. Good quality cages designed for pet birds are more suitable. In general, the larger and the more active the bird, the larger the cage one should use. The amount of time the bird will spend in the cage each day is also a factor. A bird that is caged most of the"
"so birds and on cold nights they can become torpid. Being in a torpid state could make them easy prey, but the large groups are apparently effective enough to deter most nocturnal predators. These creatures may breed at any time of the year. The nest is a large (for the bird) and untidy cup made of vegetable and animal material (sometimes including cloth and paper) and is constructed by both the male and female. Clutch size ranges from one to seven eggs (apparently based on latitude), but usually averages 3–4. Nestlings are fed by both parents and also by helpers,"
"the ground, the nest is a domed structure made of grass and twigs and lined with feathers, fur and plant down. It has 1-2 side entrances, if there is a second it is used only as an exit. The clutch size averages 3–5 but varies from 2-5, incubation is roughly two weeks with another two weeks before the young fledge. Its main food is insects but it will also eat seeds which may be very important in winter. It forages on the ground, fossicking through leaf litter and other debris under bushes, and into cavities but will also feed up"
"roots, and many other types of plant life. It burrows underground and while making its nests obtains food from the roots of different plants in its tunnels. The gophers store the food they gather in small pockets that look like black slits called “cheek pouches” on the side of their head, which is where the name “pocket gopher” was thought to arise [Tumlison: 1]. If there is no food where they burrow, they at least tend to try to find food close to where they are nesting; it is rarely seen above ground. Like other rodents, Baird's Pocket Gopher has"
"a platform. Thinner sticks and rootlets are used to make the bowl before the bowl is lined with feathers. Both birds build the nest, with the female taking over the lining of the nest while the male brings her material. New nests are built each year generally, as the re-use of old ones might spread disease or parasites—nests become caked with faeces as the nestlings grow and the parents cannot keep up with its removal. Old nests often disintegrate within twelve months anyway due to their exposed locations. A clutch can comprise up to six eggs, though usually four or"
"Beak The beak, bill, or rostrum is an external anatomical structure of birds that is used for eating and for preening, manipulating objects, killing prey, fighting, probing for food, courtship and feeding young. The terms ""beak"" and ""rostrum"" are also used to refer to a similar mouth part in some ornithischians, pterosaurs, turtles, cetaceans, dicynodonts, anuran tadpoles, sirens, pufferfishes, billfishes and cephalopods. Although beaks vary significantly in size, shape, color and texture, they share a similar underlying structure. Two bony projections—the upper and lower mandibles—are covered with a thin keratinized layer of epidermis known as the rhamphotheca. In most species,"
"a large open bowl made out of dry grass, on the ground or just above. Well hidden between tree roots or grass. Clutch size is 2-5 eggs. No further data available. Diet consists of insects and insect larvae and grass seeds. Only appears in the open to feed. Ash-throated crake The ash-throated crake (""Mustelirallus albicollis"") is a species of bird in the family Rallidae. It is found in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, French Guiana, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, and Venezuela. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical seasonally wet or flooded lowland grassland and swamps. It is"