The Debunker: Ken Jennings vs. Bird Myths, Part 3

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November, when you think about it, is one of the bird-iest months. Birds are constantly overhead, flying south for the winter. Itâ??s the month when Robert Stroud, the â??Birdman of Alcatraz,â?? died in 1963 (the day before the Kennedy assassination, by the way) as well as the month when Sesame Streetâ??s Big Bird made his TV debut. And of course, itâ??s the month when families gather around the dinner table to enjoy a big roasted bird with all the trimmings â?? except in Canada, where Thanksgiving is observed in October. (Damn Canadians, they get all the good stuff before us. New DeGrassi episodes, Thanksgiving, universal health careâ?¦) This is all by way of explaining why we asked Jeopardy!â??s Ken Jennings to debunk a flock of bird-related myths for us this month.

Bird Myth #3: If You Pick Up a Baby Bird, Its Mother Will Reject It.



Children have long been cautioned not to pick up a baby bird found struggling on the ground. According to folk wisdom, human contact can be fatal for young animals. If a baby bird has a whiff of human scent on it, the story goes, its mother will reject it from the nest, sort of like the way a human mother might suspiciously sniff her young for beer or pot.

The good news for adorable baby birds: this is just an old wivesâ?? tale. Animal mothers are so protective of their offspring that no stink, no matter how gross, would be likely to keep them from caring for their young. More to the point, most birdsâ?? sense of smell is as weak as their maternal instinct is strong. A few birds, like parrots and turkey vultures, have keen olfactory sense, but most backyard birds couldnâ??t smell human scent on their young if their lives depended on it.

So if you come across baby birds without feathers, that means theyâ??re still nestlings, and you should do your best to return them to their nestâ??or, failing that, to jury-rig them a new one. But if you see a young bird with feathers, itâ??s a fledgling learning to make it way on its own. Spending a few days flapping around on the ground or a tree branch is totally normal, and its parents are probably nearby, watching over the little guy. Youâ??ll probably do more harm than good if you swoop in to help outâ??but it has nothing to do with your B.O.

Quick Quiz: What TV show's theme song includes the heartfelt farewell,"Yo homes, smell ya later?"

Ken Jennings is the author of Brainiac, Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac, and Maphead, out now. He's also the proud owner of an underwhelming Bag o' Crap. Follow him at ken-jennings.com or on Twitter as @KenJennings.

Photo by Flickr user Public Domain Photos. Used under a Creative Commons License.

 



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