City Bird, Country Bird

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Did you ever feed city birds by hand? They may be wary, but they know what's going on, and will come get the food as soon as they feel safe.

Did you ever try to feed country birds? They have no idea what you are doing. "Whoa, this guy is throwing junk at us!"

Taking food from another creature is not an "instinct" that birds have. They learn it.

Comments

  1. Bob Murphy11:30 PM

    Is it possible that the city birds have a handout gene that grew more prevalent over the bird generations?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wabulon7:06 PM

    This is a fact. A 1997 article in J. Obsc. Mol. Gen. reports an experiment in which this gene was spliced into amoeba DNA. The modified amoebae congregated at the edge of the Petri dish looking for handouts.

    ReplyDelete

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