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A Birds Basic Needs: What's all this stuff for, anyway?

© Robert Hole, Jr.

Every living creature has four basic needs: feeding, fleeing, fighting and reproduction. Being no different than other creatures in this respect, birds are built and behave to meet these four basic needs.

Birds have to be able to feed. They have to find food, catch, pick or at least swallow food. In most cases, birds use their bills (beaks) for feeding. Bills come in many different shapes and sizes reflecting the different ways birds feed, and the different things birds eat. Many shorebirds have long thin bills for probing in mud and sucking up worms, but if you watch them, look at how many different sizes and shapes there are – each is eating at a different depth in the mud or sand, and is picking up slightly different food. Many birds, especially the finches, have short thick bills to gain leverage to crack open seeds. A long thin bill would be useless for seed cracking (try opening a walnut by crushing it between chopsticks!). Some birds, like parrots and falcons, have sharp hooked bills to open softer items, either fruit or flesh.

Birds have to be able to flee. They must have some mode of transportation in case they find themselves in a position they need to escape (or at least try to escape). Most birds use their wings and fly. Some birds, such as Ostriches and Emus, use their strong legs to run away if they need to.

Birds have to be able to fight. Whether they need to fight when cornered by a predator, or when faced with a rival for a nest site, they need to be able to defend themselves. Wings, feed and bills do double duty here as weapons. However, most bird “fighting” is ritualized – they use behavior instead of physically fighting. Watch a cockatoo raise her crest and puff up her feathers to make herself look too big to overwhelm – a sleek two pound bird can suddenly look like a twenty pound monster! It’s a frightening sight! To add to the illusion, she’ll hiss loudly to startle her opponent and help make her seem larger than she really is. Even the smallest hummingbirds use these tactics when necessary.

Birds have to reproduce. If they don’t reproduce, then their species becomes extinct. In order to reproduce they must find mates that will accept them, and usually defend some sort of territory long enough to raise the next generation. To do this, they may use all of the above skills.

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