Hi Everybody!!
September 1 once was known as the last holiday beach day or pool day of summer. Here at the Bird Sanctuary, water sports are just getting started! I have created a "Water Park" for the birds complete with multiple bird baths and bird showers. The birds also enjoy the impact sprinklers in the gardens. They have learned how to position themselves to be in the line of water sprinkles as it turns! They know when it is approaching and you can see them brace for the impact of the drops. If you use sprinklers, you might have seen the birds playing. Water features are very important for the birds and other wildlife. Remember to clean bowls and baths daily and mosquitoes will be no problem. Enjoy the photostudy today of my funny water loving birds!

Bird shower in the rain garden

G+Web Album Gallery:
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird

Bird

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Behaviour

Most birds are diurnal, but some birds, such as many species of owls and nightjars, are nocturnal or crepuscular (active during twilight hours), and many coastal waders feed when the tides are appropriate, by day or night.^[105]

Diet and feeding

Illustration of the heads of 16 types of birds with different shapes and sizes of beak

Feeding adaptations in beaks

Birds' diets are varied and often include nectar, fruit, plants, seeds, carrion, and various small animals, including other birds.^[56] Because birds have no teeth, their digestive system is adapted to process unmasticated food items that are swallowed whole.

Birds that employ many strategies to obtain food or feed on a variety of food items are called generalists, while others that concentrate time and effort on specific food items or have a single strategy to obtain food are considered specialists.^[56] Birds' feeding strategies vary by species. Many birds glean for insects, invertebrates, fruit, or seeds. Some hunt insects by suddenly attacking from a branch. Those species that seek pest insects are considered beneficial 'biological control agents' and their presence encouraged in biological pest control programs.^[106] Nectar feeders such as hummingbirds, sunbirds, lories, and lorikeets amongst others have specially adapted brushy tongues and in many cases bills designed to fit co-adapted flowers.^[107] Kiwis and shorebirds with long bills probe for invertebrates; shorebirds' varied bill lengths and feeding methods result in the separation of ecological niches.^[56]^[108] Loons, diving ducks,penguins and auks pursue their prey underwater, using their wings or feet for propulsion,^[48] while aerial predators such as sulids, kingfishers and terns plunge dive after their prey. Flamingos, three species of prion, and some ducks are filter feeders.^[109]^[110] Geese and dabbling ducks are primarily grazers.

Some species, including frigatebirds, gulls,^[111] and skuas,^[112] engage in kleptoparasitism, stealing food items from other birds. Kleptoparasitism is thought to be a supplement to food obtained by hunting, rather than a significant part of any species' diet; a study of great frigatebirds stealing from masked boobiesestimated that the frigatebirds stole at most 40% of their food and on average stole only 5%.^[113] Other birds are scavengers; some of these, like vultures, are specialised carrion eaters, while others, like gulls, corvids, or other birds of prey, are opportunists.^[114]

Water and drinking

Water is needed by many birds although their mode of excretion and lack of sweat glands reduces the physiological demands.^[115] Some desert birds can obtain their water needs entirely from moisture in their food. They may also have other adaptations such as allowing their body temperature to rise, saving on moisture loss from evaporative cooling or panting.^[116] Seabirds can drink seawater and have salt glands inside the head that eliminate excess salt out of the nostrils.^[117]

Most birds scoop water in their beaks and raise their head to let water run down the throat. Some species, especially of arid zones, belonging to the pigeon,finch, mousebird, button-quail and bustard families are capable of sucking up water without the need to tilt back their heads.^[118] Some desert birds depend on water sources and sandgrouse are particularly well known for their daily congregations at waterholes. Nesting sandgrouse and many plovers carry water to their young by wetting their belly feathers.^[119] Some birds carry water for chicks at the nest in their crop or regurgitate it along with food. The pigeon family, flamingos and penguins have adaptations to produce a nutritive fluid called crop milk that they provide to their chicks.^[120]

Feather care

Feathers being critical to the survival of a bird, require maintenance. Apart from physical wear and tear, feathers face the onslaught of fungi, ectoparasitic feather mites and birdlice.^[121] The physical condition of feathers are maintained by preening often with the application of secretions from the preen gland. Birds also bathe in water or dust themselves. While some birds dip into shallow water, more aerial species may make aerial dips into water and arboreal species often make use of dew or rain that collect on leaves. Birds of arid regions make use of loose soil to dust-bathe. A behaviour termed as anting in which the bird encourages ants to run through their plumage is also thought to help them reduce the ectoparasite load in feathers. Many species will spread out their wings and expose them to direct sunlight and this too is thought to help in reducing fungal and ectoparasitic activity that may lead to feather damage.^[122]^[123]

Ecology

Birds occupy a wide range of ecological positions.^[146] While some birds are generalists, others are highly specialised in their habitat or food requirements. Even within a single habitat, such as a forest, the niches occupied by different species of birds vary, with some species feeding in the forest canopy, others beneath the canopy, and still others on the forest floor. Forest birds may be insectivores, frugivores, and nectarivores. Aquatic birds generally feed by fishing, plant eating, and piracy or kleptoparasitism. Birds of prey specialise in hunting mammals or other birds, while vultures are specialised scavengers. Avivoresare animals that are specialized at predating birds.

Some nectar-feeding birds are important pollinators, and many frugivores play a key role in seed dispersal.^[189] Plants and pollinating birds often coevolve,^[190]and in some cases a flower's primary pollinator is the only species capable of reaching its nectar.^[191]

Birds are often important to island ecology. Birds have frequently reached islands that mammals have not; on those islands, birds may fulfill ecological roles typically played by larger animals. For example, in New Zealand the moas were important browsers, as are the kereru and kokako today.^[189] Today the plants of New Zealand retain the defensive adaptations evolved to protect them from the extinct moa.^[192] Nesting seabirds may also affect the ecology of islands and surrounding seas, principally through the concentration of large quantities of guano, which may enrich the local soil^[193] and the surrounding seas.^[194]

A wide variety of Avian ecology field methods, including counts, nest monitoring, and capturing and marking, are used for researching avian ecology.

Relationship with humans

Two rows of cages in a dark barn with many white chickens in each cage

Industrial farming of chickens

Since birds are highly visible and common animals, humans have had a relationship with them since the dawn of man.^[195] Sometimes, these relationships are mutualistic, like the cooperative honey-gathering among honeyguides and African peoples such as the Borana.^[196] Other times, they may be commensal, as when species such as the house sparrow^[197] have benefited from human activities. Several bird species have become commercially significant agricultural pests,^[198] and some pose an aviation hazard.^[199] Human activities can also be detrimental, and have threatened numerous bird species with extinction (hunting, avian lead poisoning, pesticides, roadkill, and predation by pet cats and dogs are common sources of death for birds).

Conservation

The California condor once numbered only 22 birds, but conservation measures have raised that to over 300 today.

Main article: Bird conservation

Though human activities have allowed the expansion of a few species, such as the barn swallow and European starling, they have caused population decreases or extinction in many other species. Over a hundred bird species have gone extinct in historical times,^[228] although the most dramatic human-caused avian extinctions, eradicating an estimated 750–1800 species, occurred during the human colonisation of Melanesian, Polynesian, and Micronesianislands.^[229] Many bird populations are declining worldwide, with 1,227 species listed as threatened by Birdlife International and the IUCN in 2009.^[230]^[231]

The most commonly cited human threat to birds is habitat loss.^[232] Other threats include overhunting, accidental mortality due to structural collisions or long-line fishing bycatch,^[233] pollution (including oil spills and pesticide use),^[234] competition and predation from nonnative invasive species,^[235] and climate change.

Governments and conservation groups work to protect birds, either by passing laws that preserve and restore bird habitat or by establishing captive populations for reintroductions. Such projects have produced some successes; one study estimated that conservation efforts saved 16 species of bird that would otherwise have gone extinct between 1994 and 2004, including the California condor and Norfolk parakeet.^[236]