The Australian wedge-tailed eagle has enormous eyes, both in absolute terms and compared with most other birds, and as a result has the greatest visual acuity of any known animal. Other birds might benefit from the eagle's acute vision, but… — Tim Birkhead Copy Share Image
The Australian wedge-tailed eagle has enormous eyes, both in absolute terms and compared with most other birds, and as a result has the greatest… — Tim Birkhead Copy Share Image
“As drought kicks in, the choughs experience several things simultaneously. The shortage of food increases their stress levels; the birds are forced to spend more time searching for food, and less time keeping an eye open for predators. If food is really short the birds use up all their body fat and start to use the protein reserves in their… — Tim Birkhead Copy Share
The human eye has long fascinated lovers, artists and physicians. The ancient Greeks dissected eyes, but struggled to understand how they worked, unclear as… — Tim Birkhead Copy Share Image
“When I mentioned to a friend I was writing a book about eggs he told me to be sure to mention how in Thomas Hardy's "Jude the Obscure" the young Arabella incubates a sky-blue egg of a song bird in the cleavage of her bosom ... When I checked, I was disappointed to find it wasn't a song thrush egg,… — Tim Birkhead Copy Share
I am not going to speculate about the emotions that might be involved in avian infidelity. — Tim Birkhead Copy Share Image
“Ingeniously, [Heinrich Wickmann] was able to use a pencil to mark that bit of the egg he could see inside the hen's oviduct, through… — Tim Birkhead Copy Share Image
“One of the most remarkable of all ornithological discoveries was the realisation that birds in temperate regions undergo enormous seasonal changes in their internal… — Tim Birkhead Copy Share Image
Although we tend to think of the brain as a discrete organ - a lump of squidgy tissue - it is better to think… — Tim Birkhead Copy Share Image
Compared with mammals, birds have relatively large eyes. In simple terms, a bigger eye means better vision, and excellent vision is essential for avoiding… — Tim Birkhead Copy Share Image
There are several ways we can know what a dog, a bird or, indeed, any other organism can see, for example either by looking… — Tim Birkhead Copy Share Image