Looks like our cold snap will ease up a bit. So the birds can take their winter coats off.
I don’t know where they keep them. To the best of my knowledge, they don’t have closets to keep their extra heavy coats in. If they did, they would probably also have things like boots. Maybe even a scarf. But you don’t see them wearing things like that.
What you do see is round little birds. Some of them are sort of round to begin with, but they get even rounder and fluffier when we get cold weather.
A lot of birds have this way of dealing with the cold. They don’t suddenly sprout more feathers. They take the feathers they have and just puff them up. It’s not about the number of feathers. It’s about creating air space in those feathers. Space that will trap a bit of heat in the fluff and keep them warm.
At some point, people must also have noticed this, which likely led to things like the down filled jacket and comforter. Maybe it was just the fact that the feathers looked like they must be warm, but it really is as much the air space as anything.
Humans are not really built that way. Which is probably a good thing. Otherwise, those of us who live in northern climates would probably have evolved to be a whole lot hairier than those in the south. A trip down south in February would probably lead to increased Sasquatch sightings on the beaches of Mexico.
But I do find it amusing how birds deal with he cold, turning themselves into little puff balls. You can almost tell how cold it is by how round and fluffy the birds look.
It’s probably a good thing we don’t do the same thing. I don’t know about you, but I kind of got over the whole big hair thing in the 80s.
