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The earliest approaches to modern bird study involved the collection of eggs, a practice known as oology. While collecting became a pastime for many amateurs, the labels associated with these early egg collections made them unreliable for the serious study of bird breeding. To preserve eggs, a tiny hole was made and the contents extracted.
Oology (/ oʊ ˈ ɒ l ə dʒ i /; [1] also oölogy) is a branch of ornithology studying bird eggs, nests and breeding behaviour. The word is derived from the Greek oion, meaning egg. Oology can also refer to the hobby of collecting wild birds' eggs, sometimes called egg collecting, birdnesting or egging, which is now illegal in many ...
Birds were one of the first animal species tested on their number sense. A raven named Jacob was able to distinguish the number 5 across different tasks in the experiments by Otto Koehler. [ 5 ] Later experiments supported the claim of existence of a number sense in birds, with Alex , a grey parrot, able to label and comprehend labels for sets ...
Bird eggs are laid by the females and range in quantity from one (as in condors) to up to seventeen (the grey partridge). Clutch size may vary latitudinally within a species. Some birds lay eggs even when the eggs have not been fertilized; it is not uncommon for pet owners to find their lone bird nesting on a clutch of infertile eggs, which are ...
The zoologist J.L. Cloudsley-Thompson argued that a large bird would be able to produce more young than a small bird. [4] Williams replied that this would be a bad reproductive strategy, as large birds have lower mortality and therefore a higher residual reproductive value over their whole lives (so taking a large short-term risk is unjustified ...
Guano (bird excrement) is harvested for use as a fertiliser. Birds figure throughout human culture. About 120 to 130 species have become extinct due to human activity since the 17th century, and hundreds more before then. Human activity threatens about 1,200 bird species with extinction, though efforts are underway to protect them.
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Bird food can vary depending upon dietary habits and beak shapes. Dietary habits refer to whether birds are naturally omnivores, carnivores, herbivores, insectivores or nectarivores. The shape of the beak, which correlates with dietary habits, is important in determining how a bird can crack the seed coat and obtain the meat of the seed. [2]