One of last week’s posts was entitled Comparative Human and Bird Digestive & Respiratory Systems – it was a bit heady and I think the point was lost on many readers. The message was that avian and human digestive and respiratory systems are very different.
Comparative Physiology: Human and Bird
The human body uses food and liquids for energy, growth, maintenance and repair. Before it can use food and liquids for these purposes, it must go through a process called digestion, which is carried out by the digestive system. The digestive system consists of the following organs: Mouth, salivary glands, oesophagus, liver, gall bladder, pancreas, stomach, large and small intestines, duodenum, rectum and the anus.
Before iPods there were boomboxes. Before boomboxes, there were stereo radios. Precursors to phonographs were Victrolas.
But the way to get tunes in your home long before there was electricity was the natural sound of bird songs.
For years people would place a Canary or other singing finches in a small cage on either side of the room and whoever did that first can take credit for inventing stereo sound.
Canaries are small songbirds coming from the Finch family and were initially found in places like the Azores and believe it or not the Canary Islands.
Why is DNA so VERY important even for your non-breeding parrot?
About 20% of parrots, like budgies, eclectus, and cockatiels that are sexually dimorphic.
That means that the gender of the bird can be identified by physical differences.
In the case of budgies and cockatiels, they have to reach near-adulthood to exhibit differences while Eclectus are readily identifiable upon feathering out the first time since females are red and blue while males are green.
Anatomy and function
The upper respiratory system (URS) consists of the external nares, operculum, nasal concha, infraorbital sinus, and choanal slit.
The nares are paired symmetrical openings with an operculum within each. The nares each communicate with the nasal cavity containing the concha.
The left and right nasal cavities are separated by a septum. The nasal cavity communicates with the left and right infraorbital sinus.
Okay, that’s a bit of a stretch but if you could see what budgies see – not so much.
A couple of weeks ago we talked about not fully understanding the effects of ultraviolet lighting on our birds. Something that not a lot of us including myself fully understand.
Leave it to NASA to set the record straight on the correlation between parrots and the center of our galaxy. Admitted science geek that I am, lots of interesting content cross my desktop daily.
There’s all this talk of immigration in Congress – something I try not to involve myself in.
Yet I know of feral parrot flocks around the country which I’ll identify shortly.
Healthy adult cockatiels usually weigh 78 to 125 grams. Birds should always be weighed in grams, which is a metric measurement. (There are approximately 28 grams in an ounce.) It is important that a bird is weighed on an accurate gram scale. Electronic scales are available for purchase from bird-supply companies and office-supply retailers. These can be modified by installing a lightweight perch to facilitate weighing birds.
AVIAN RESPIRATORY SYSTEM
Birds possess a very unique and efficient respiratory system. They lack a diaphragm, have non-expandable lungs and a system of air sacs that extend into many of their bones. Vocalization is by means of a syrinx, not a larynx as in mammals.
Anatomy
The nostrils or nares are usually located at the base of the beak. In psittacines (parrots) they are located within the area of the cere. Amazons have a structure known as an operculum inside the nare which helps prevent inhalation of foreign bodies. In most birds, the nares are readily visible, while in certain birds-such as crows-they are covered by feathers.
