Joan Cartales, age 8, of Eugene, Oregon, for her question:
How do birds sniff?
A bird has two nose holes in his spiky beak. But his nose is not a very good sniffer. He uses it for breathing and he tends to breathe much faster than we do. He may miss the sweet smells in the world, but he makes up for this in other ways. His quick bright eyes are very sharp and he hears the slightest whisper. You may wonder how in the world he manages to hear anything at all, because he seems to have no ears. But actually he has a pair of very keen ears hidden in his feathers.
Animal experts are very interested in how birds sniff. But it is very hard to find out about it. The feathery creatures do not seem to care how things smell. In fact, some experts suspect that they cannot smell anything at all. A frisky hummingbird does not choose the most fragrant flowers in the garden. Instead, he chooses the pretty red ones. All the birds can see the world's lovely colors. But they cannot sniff the world's lovely smells at least not very well.
A bird has one bright eye on each side of his head. .So he can see what goes on all around him. When he cocks his feathery head he sees all the scenery on this side and that side plus a lot of the scenery in front and behind him. And his sharp eyes never miss the slightest thing. His,sharp ears never miss the slightest sound even though you may not notice where he keeps them. We have a shell shaped ear on each side of our heads and we tend to think that these outside ears do our hearing for us. But they don't. They just trap the sounds a Lid lead them inside.
The real hearing job is done by two clever little inner ears, buried safely inside our bony skulls. A bird has no outer ears. But each side of his head has a little tunnel. They lead to a pair of very keen inner ears inside his skull. The tunnel doors are covered with skin. A bird also wears a pair of warm feathery ear muffs to match his feathery coat.
Birds may not be able to sniff very well. But some experts have ideas about haw other animals smell. For example, a dog has a superior sniffer. He can smell a bird from afar. A mother quail nests on the ground, where many hungry animals prowl for food. But often a dog passes right by without noticing her. This may be because her nest is a plain hollow in the ground. She uses no materials that smell like birds.
Her own bird smell is not noticeable because she crouches on the nest with her feathers huddled close together. Nobody knows this for sure, but maybe birds know how to hide their own smells, even though they are not very good sniffers themselves.
It seems a pity to miss the scents of fragrant flowers and fresh breezes. But there is another side to the story. I lost birds also miss the horrible smells. The experts are not sure about the vultures and buzzards who feed on rotting meat. Certain tests hint that perhaps these birds can sniff their foul smelling food from afar. But at present, nobody is certain whether this is true or not.