Do Geese’ Quacks Echo? And Different Chicken Myths [Updated]

I obtain all types of questions from world wide, and I’ve been contacted by newspapers, magazines, radio and TV exhibits, Hollywood producers, authors, artists, scientists, architects, and even a fighter pilot in Iraq, asking about some facet of birds. Principally they’re easy questions on identification, chicken homes, feeding, habits, ailments, and many others., however often the questioner alludes to some previous wives’ story reminiscent of that of touching a chicken’s nest or eggs or younger, inflicting the mother and father to desert the nest and even kill the younger, or the parable about hummingbirds migrating by hitching rides on the backs of geese.

There are many folkloric tales about owls or ravens being dangerous omens, storks delivering infants, and blackbirds nesting in your roof to deliver good luck. Legend has it that the robin acquired its purple breast from attempting to take away the bloody thorns from Christ’s head on the Crucifixion. Then there’s the story of younger eaglets who, attempting their first flight unsuccessfully, are caught on the again of one in all their mother and father and ferried again to the nest. This delusion apparently comes from a narrative within the bible (Deuteronomy 32:10,11).

One yarn I’ve heard rather a lot recently is that eagles shed their talons and beak and feathers at about thirty to forty years of age, renewing their life in a 150-day course of, after which dwelling to the ripe previous age of 70 or 100. This apparently is simply an e-rumor generated by somebody and unfold by our on-line world. We’re additionally warned to not throw rice at weddings as a result of if birds eat it, they’ll explode. If this had been true, the rice fields can be filled with burst birds. We’re additionally instructed to not feed white bread to birds as a result of it’s dangerous for them; it could not be weight loss program however feeding them white bread on the native park is just a small portion of their weight loss program and positively gained’t damage them. Nevertheless, feeding them cracked corn might be a greater concept. We hear that some birds mate for all times. We’re instructed that some bigger birds, like geese and eagles, mate for all times. No. Their mating habits is as erratic as ours. How concerning the one about purple dye in hummingbird feeders inflicting most cancers? Not true both. 

However probably the most attention-grabbing fables I’ve heard is that the one sound that doesn’t echo is a duck’s quack. Why folks imagine such nonsense is past me, however this story pops up often. First, what duck? There are dozens of species of geese and only some, such because the Mallard, make a sound that may realistically be described as a quack. Second, what acoustic properties would make a sound impervious to an echo? There isn’t a conceivable motive why any duck ought to or may create an unechoable sound. Though scientists often don’t trouble attempting to refute nonsense like this (we depart it to “Delusion Busters”), there was a research in England that did simply that. As Decide Judy says “if it doesn’t make sense, it isn’t true.”