In the steppe-areas of Australia budgerigars live in large swarms of up to several thousand birds. They often have to travel long distances searching for food and water. Traveling in such a large flock has several advantages for the birds: several pairs of eyes see more than one. Therefore food and enemies are detected faster. In addition predators have difficulties concentrating on single individuals in such a huge flock which is why hunting is often unsuccessfull.
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When the Spanish conquered Mexico in 1528 the Aztec king Montezuma already kept tame turkeys to adorn himself with their feathers. Their meat was only eaten on festive days as they were of high religious value in the cult of the dead. After the discovery of America they were brought to Europe and bred especially for their meat. In contrast to the American Indians Europeans consider turkeys ugly because of their red, naked forehead and neck lobes.
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Blue-fronted amazons either benefit or experience damage from humans. On the one hand, arable lands provide an additional source of food. In particular corn and sunflower fields and fruit plantations helf to overcome times of low nutritional resources. But blue-fronted amazons are also persecuted by humans. Farmers shoot them because of the damage they cause on their fields and hundreds of thousands are being captured for animal trade. They also suffer from deforestation of breeding trees and the overgrazing of meadows by cattle herds.
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Blue eared pheasant males are very aggressive during mating season and later defend their chicks vigorously even against large predators. That is why they were considered symbols of bravery and irrepressible courage in China. Generals of the Han and Qing dynasties received helmets with blue eared pheasant tail feathers to inspire them to be as brave as the birds.
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Blue and gold macaw couples usually stay together their whole life. When choosing a female the most colourful males have the best chances.
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During the migration between the winter and the breeding area many bar-headed geese have to cross the Himalayas. Sometimes they reach flight heights of over 9000 meters: bar-headed geese have already been seen flying over Mount Everest. They survive the lack of oxygen at these hights because of a special adaptation: the red blood pigment hemoglobin is different than the one of mammals or other birds. Because of it they are able to absorb oxygen particularly quickly at low pressure. The trigger is a single mutation by which the amino acid proline in the alpha chain of hemoglobin (α-globin) is replaced by alanine.
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Habitat destruction and wild captures for animal trade have reduced the number of laugh thrushes to about 250 in the wild. About 150 live in zoos. There is an international breeding programme for these charasmatic birds, which fly into the wood i groups to look for food and never stop chattering while doing that.
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