I'm glad that Pyewacket generally brings his prey back dead, because there's only a certain amount of paté that we can offer to the other guests that he brings back.
I'm going to tell you anyway. It's because they don't have digestive juices. The sand and grit are to grind up the food in their gullet - if they don't eat it, they'll die.
Okay then, I admit it, I know about all that and can use the word 'gastrolith' whenever required in conversation. I was just surprised by how much of the stuff was in there and the circumstances under which I discovered it, although as I type I'm suddenly realising why, or at least coming with my own theory as to why, I should have discovered it. The pigeon in question had been caught by some cat (possibly mine, although it's quite a catch if he managed it. I could provide a report on the broken bones at some point too if required) and buried by me for a few months in a specially crafted little shroud so that I could get at the bones. Most of the soft tissue was gone, apart from what seemed to be the stomach, which was full of the little stones. Of course the stomach has to resist the acidic gastric juices that the bird does produce, so that would explain its survival
( ... )
So lets get this straight. You bury stuff in your back garden just so that you can dig it up again. That's fantastic! What an archaeologist!
James had hours of fun on the beach on holiday once burying my hand in the sand and then excavating it over and over again. We don't have a garden at the moment, but I can see I'm going to have to keep a closer eye on him when we do, this career obviously isn't one you can leave at the office.
It's not really the process of digging them up that I do it for, but so that I can study the bones once they've been dug up. But it's true, being an archaeologist is the sort of thing that you don't stop doing when you stop being paid. It's the sort of thing that I'm always amazed that people will pay you to do. There are very few careers where you actually get given money to have fun.
Birds do have digestive juices (secreted by their proventriculus), they may not be as effective as ours at breaking down big chunks, but they need them, as you cannot get food ready for absorption through mechanical breakdown alone. You need to chemically break down the protein to amino acids etc. The grit etc breaks up the food to provide a bigger surface area for the digestive juices to work on, just like our teeth and stomach acid does.
Comments 8
The rest exist entirely on foie gras.
Reply
Reply
Reply
I'm going to tell you anyway. It's because they don't have digestive juices. The sand and grit are to grind up the food in their gullet - if they don't eat it, they'll die.
Birds are nifty.
Reply
Reply
James had hours of fun on the beach on holiday once burying my hand in the sand and then excavating it over and over again. We don't have a garden at the moment, but I can see I'm going to have to keep a closer eye on him when we do, this career obviously isn't one you can leave at the office.
Reply
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment