Dec 01 2008
Bird Molars
This weekend, while sipping my morning coffee in the backyard, I watched a blue jay slip out of a thicket of trees and land on a platform feeder. It proceeded to toss back seeds as if it hadn’t eaten in weeks. Clearly the bird’s mother hadn’t taught it to chew its food 20 times before swallowing.
But all birds (as far as I know) — including the above cousin species, an endangered scrub jay I photographed 5 miles away — don’t need to chew. At least not at the top end of their alimentary canal. It seems they “borrow” their molars, swallowing those as well. They select optimally sized pebbles and down those, too. Coupled with the contractions of their gizzard, the pebbles do the work of molars. They mash the seeds and grains contained there.
Still . . . something in me thinks the blue jay ought to take a bit more time to eat. Maybe I want it to provide me with the opportunity to imagine it is savoring the meal I have generously poured out for it.
