Nothing to say, yet
Transcription
The podcast discusses various questions about birds, such as why they fly, how they fly, and their connection to dinosaurs. It also mentions interesting facts about birds, like the smallest bird egg belonging to the hummingbird and birds sleeping while flying. The podcast ends with a request for topic requests for the next episode. Welcome back to my podcast, Wow in the World, where I, your host, Jamie Arnold, answer questions submitted by children about the topic of the week. The topic of the week is really interesting, and we had a lot of good questions come in from children all around the world. Our topic of the week is all about birds. So the first question that we had submitted is from Jessica Thompson, who is in third grade and from Wisconsin. She would like to know, why do birds fly? The answer to that question is they fly in order to escape from predators or catch their own prey. The second question also comes from Jessica Thompson, and it is, how do they fly? Well, Jessica, they fly by flapping their wings and steering mainly with their tails. This next question I found very, very interesting. It was submitted by Grayson Smith, who is in second grade and from Charleston, South Carolina. His question was, are birds actually from dinosaurs? Interesting enough, Grayson, yes, birds evolved from a group of meat-eating dinosaurs called theropods. This is interesting enough because although dinosaurs have teeth, birds do not. Actually, they have ridges that help them grip their food. The next question we have was submitted by Alyssa Canton. She is in second grade from Columbus, Ohio. Her question is, who does the smallest bird egg belong to? Well, Alyssa, the smallest bird egg belongs to the hummingbird, which is no surprise because the hummingbird is actually the smallest bird and is lighter than a dime. We have time for a few more questions before we get into our fun facts of the day. Our next question was submitted by Tyler Mays, who is from Huntsville, Alabama, and in the first grade. His question is, what is a large group of birds called? A flock of birds is a large group of birds from the same species. They stay very close together, and it is believed they do this as they are safer from predators when they are in a group. Now, if you look up and see birds in a flock, they are usually traveling together or looking for food. Our next question is from Gracie Asher, who is in the fourth grade and from Gatlinburg, Tennessee. She wants to know, why are birds so noisy? Well, Gracie, as you could probably hear when you are outside, birds are great communicators. They chirp and sing. They do this for a lot of different reasons. One of the reasons is to attract a mate. Another reason is to warn other birds of danger, and they also do it to scare off their predators. We have time for one more question before our fun facts of the day. Asher Morris from L.A., California, who is in the fifth grade, asked, is it true a bird's eyes take up 50% of their head? Yes, it is true, but let's keep in mind that their heads are way smaller than ours. In comparison, our eyes take up about 5% of our heads. If our eyes were the size of a bird's eyes, they would be the size of baseballs. Thank you so much, as always, to everybody who submitted questions for our topic of the week all about birds. I definitely learned some new facts about birds this week, and I hope you did too. Now stick around for a little longer if you want to hear more fun facts about birds that you probably haven't heard yet. All right, thank you for sticking around, and welcome back to Wow In The World. This is our part in the podcast called, What's That Fact? This is just where I go over fun facts about the topic of the week that I found interesting, and I'm hoping that you do too. The first fun fact that I have for you all today is some birds cover themselves in ants. Who on earth would want to do this? Well, many birds, particularly songbirds, are known to engage in a behavior called anting, in which the birds pick up ants in their bills and then wipe or rub them off on their feathers, often repeating the process with many ants at a time. This seemingly unusual behavior has been observed in more than 200 bird species, including cardinals, robins, crows, great horned owls, and wild turkeys. Why birds engage in this behavior isn't exactly understood, although researchers believe it may have to do with maintaining their feathers. It also may help control parasites and other organisms on their feathers because the species of ants used for anting typically have high concentrations of formic acid, which can help mites and parasites. Now for our second fun fact of the day, which I'm sure doesn't take many people by surprise, is woodpeckers can peck really fast. Woodchucks don't chuck wood, but woodpeckers definitely do peck wood. They peck it for many reasons. Sometimes they are looking for an insect meal, while other times they are trying to create a cavity for a nest or roosting spot. In the spring, woodpeckers can especially be annoying when they drum away at wood and other surfaces while trying to attract a mate. And the best part about it, well, not so best part about it, if you live next to one, is all that pecking really adds up to as much as 8,000 pecks per day. Our third fun fact for the week is some birds can sleep while flying. You've probably heard of the phrase, sleep with one eye open, but it's not just a silly expression in the avian world. Some birds actually can sleep with one eye open, and some can even sleep in flight, seriously. You might be wondering why they do this, because that's the exact same thought I had when I heard this. Well, birds don't sleep quite as deeply as humans do. They usually sleep for just brief spells until being startled awake by predators, other nearby birds, or weather conditions. We have time for one more question, and in my opinion, I saved the best for last. I found this one super interesting because, honestly, I thought it would be the opposite. Many birds eat twice their weight in food every day. Now this wasn't the surprising part for me. The surprising part for me was the smaller the bird, the more food it needs to eat. Birds eat more than a human baby or a cat. That is so crazy to me. Well, thank you so much for listening in to my podcast, Wow in the World. Please submit any topic requests that you have for next week's podcast on wowintheworldonline.com. And as always, have a blessed week.
