Sunday, September 21, 2008

Nature Trivia #4


• The flamingo sits down to bathe and to nest. What makes this a curiosity is that the flamingo doesn’t sit down much. It is on its feet, or foot, (whichever), more than any other bird.

• Bird claws, like human fingernails, grow con- tinuously. In the wild they do not have a chance to grow too long because the birds are always work- ing their fingers to the bone, trying to make ends meet and building a nest egg.

• Old filmmakers put the call of the kookaburra on the soundtracks of almost every jungle movie ever shot. But the kookaburra lives only in Austra- lia. [I bet Tarzan knew that!]

• Homing pigeons equipped with tiny alumi- num cameras were used by both sides during WWII to photograph areas too heavily fortified to be flown over by planes. The cameras were activated by air rushing through a rubber ball.

• The heaviest chicken you ever wanted to meet belonged to Grant Sullens of West Point, Calif. He had a monstrous rooster named "Weirdo" who weighed in around 22 lbs. Weirdo was so mean that he crippled a dog which came too close and he killed two cats. Now that is what I call "Poultry in Motion"!

• The Canada goose uses 12,000 muscles to move its feathers.

• The pelican, when fishing, with each catch scoops up more than a gallon of water.

• A robin worm-hunting on the lawn and cock- ing his head as though he were listening is merely trying to bring his eye into position so that he can see where the worm is. Birds’ eyes (with few exceptions) are set in the sides of their heads, and they see out to the sides rather than straight ahead; they do not have bifocal vision as humans do.

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