Second Nature to frostbite? The magic is done through a number of engineering wonders, including twining of arteries and veins to create an eicient heat exchange, keeping even a duck’s foot warm enough to dip in icy waters. Many bird’s feet are also covered in scales, non-living tissue immune to freezing. Bird feet are also mostly bone and tendon, tissues which do not freeze. Birds may still feel the pinch, however, and that’s when you’ll spot them squatting over their feet, sheltering them in layers of down, or tucking up one foot at a time for a warming. Lastly, birds lay low during winter, avoiding calorie-burning activities like singing, building nests and making eggs. Taking this into consideration, you can see why a full feeder is such a blessing to our over-wintering birds. You don’t have to worry about a population boom due to overfeeding – sadly birds are killed in the millions by human interference (e.g. house cats, loss of habitat, disorienting city lights, sound pollution). You can enjoy loading up a feeder with black oil sunlower seeds guilt-free. These small wonders of adaptation deserve our awe and attention. For a special treat, putting a relective sheeting on a window (you can see out, but the birds can’t see in) and setting up a feeder beside it, will give you a close-up look at the wonders of birds.

Delicate Survivors By Deborah Ayer of Bonnyvale Environmental Education Center

B

eing engineered for life on a temperate African plain, in winter we don sweaters, long undies, and a fortiication of outerwear to adapt to the snow. While 62 percent of our birds have chased summer by lying south, a whopping 38 percent endure winter conditions that would undo us. A irst look at an over-wintering bird seems to present a fragile-bodied waif, vulnerable to the cruel winds, ices and freezing temperatures of the season. How do they hop around bare-footed without losing their claws to frostbite? How can their metabolism muster heat enough to counter bitter chills, especially with so little food around? In the summer, ruled grouse feast on more than 100 diferent plants, leisurely munching in the shelter of undergrowth, hidden from predators. In the winter woods, however, they depend on an austere diet of buds and twigs which they must pick of bare branches, fully visible to predators. Luckily, they have evolved a “crop,” a kind of chipmunk cheek of the esophagus. The crop is used as a purse which they can stuf full, without spending time cracking or chewing. After about 20 minutes of crop stuing, grouse have collected enough calories to endure a cold night, and retire to safe shelter to digest. The grouse has its crop stash ground and mashed with the help of swallowed grit and grinding muscles, though other birds bring up seeds one at a time, to be cracked and mashed from the comfort of a private, safe retreat. While human beings rely on wool, down and luxurious leece to protect our delicate pinkness, feathers do a marvelous job of protecting birds from winter’s abuses. Birds have about ive diferent kinds of feathers, each with its own special function. Deep beneath what you usually picture as “feathers,” lies a thick insulation of down. Birds also have a gland that secretes a waterproof oil. If you spot a bird preening, it is busily spreading this protective oil over its feathers, like popping on a heat-saving rain coat. You might also notice birds looking chubbier than they did in summer; they haven’t bulked up with fat, but are likely luing out their layers of feathers, trapping warm air pockets, thickening their insulation. Feathers can grow over nostrils to warm incoming air, and thicken around feet creating a kind of snow shoe. Speaking of feet, have you ever marveled that bird feet seem impervious

Second Nature is contributed by the naturalists at Bonnyvale Environmental Education Center. For more information, visit www.beec.org or call 802-257-5785

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