Tuesday's Trivia.

A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song. ~Chinese Proverb

We have birds. They arrive in droves amongst the flowering gums. They bump our windows after insects. They corroboree the full moon at night & serenade the dawn. I can name over 200 different species just standing on my verandah & watching who comes & goes.

Birds are God's messengers; small angels with wings. They exhult in the falling rain. They sing praises for each morning & gives thanks for each berry they find. But they only sing when flying or perched high, never when they are on the ground.

I love having so many birds about the place but I'm not very keen on handling them. See their bones are hollow so you get anomilies like the bones of a pigeon weighing less than its feathers! And a pigeons feathers make up 10% of its body weight. On the other hand an ostrich's eye is twice the size of its brain & weighs 3.3 pounds. Obviously thinking is not a high priority.

Hummingbirds though, they can fly backwards. They are the only bird that can do this. Neat party trick.

Some things are just plain weird. Do you know what you call a group of chickens? A peep! Seriously. I swear it's true. A group of geese on the ground is a gaggle but once it's in the air it's a skein. And speaking of geese, the goose was the first bird domesticated by man. Larks though! A group of larks is called an exhultation! But a group of ravens is a murder.

Then there is the whole sleep thing. An albatross can fly while asleep. Ducks on the outer edge of a group sleep with one eye open. Those in the centre of a group feel safe so close both eyes. And birds dream. They dream about their songs & have dream rehearsals ~ resulting in better songs the next day. I don't know how the University of Chicago verified this but it really makes you think some people don't have enough to occupy themselves!

Roosters can't crow if they can't fully extend their necks & a ducks quake doesn't echo & no~one knows why. And I really needed to know it takes 40 minutes to hard boil an ostrich egg!

Yep, birds are fascinating but 90% of all species that have become extinct have been birds; 109 species in total. Like dodos. And can I count the Phoenix?