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Avian Senses(Conure)
By peace | August 17, 2007
Many parrots vocalize around sunrise and sunset, which may be a holdover from flock behaviour in the wild. The parrots in the flock call to one another to start and end their days. For this reason, you may notice your pet conure calls to you when you are out of the room. This may mean he feels lonely or he needs some reassurance from you.
Birds use their beaks and mouths to explore their world in much the same way people use their hands. For example, don’t be surprised if the conure reaches out to tentatively taste or bite your hand before stepping onto it for the first time. The conure is not biting you to be mean. He is merely investigating his world and testing the strength of a new perch using the tools he has available.
These are the five senses of birds:
1. Taste
Compared to other mammals, the sense of taste is poorly developed in conures. Birds can taste, but in a limited way because they have fewer taste buds in their mouths than people do. Also, their taste buds are contained in the roofs of their mouths, not in the tongue.
2. Vision
Conures have a well-developed sense of sight. Birds are detail and they can discern colours. Because their eyes are located on the sides of their heads, most pet birds rely on monocular vision, which means they use each eye independent of the other. If a bird wants to study an object, you will see them tilt their head to one side and examine the object with just one eye.
Like cats and dogs, birds have a third eyelid called the nictitating membrane that you will sometimes see flick briefly across the conure’s eye. The purpose of this membrane is to keep the eyeball moist and clean. The bird also lacks eyelashes. In their place are small feathers called semiplumes that help keep dirt and dust out of the bird’s eyeball.
3. Hearing
The conure’s ears are situated under the feathers behind and below each of their eye. The ears are somewhat large holes in the sides of the bird’s head. Conures have about the same ability to distinguish sound waves and determine the location of the sound as people do, but birds seem to be less sensitive to higher and lower pitches than their owners.
4. Smell
Birds seem to have a poorly developed sense of smell because smells often dissipate quickly in the air.
5. Touch
Parrots use their feet and their mouths to touch their surroundings (young birds, particularly, seem to “mouth” everything they can get their beaks on), to play and to determine what is safe to perch on or chew on to eat. Along with their tactile uses, a parrot’s feet also have an unusual design compared to other caged birds. Unlike a finch, for example, which has three toes pointing forward and one back, two of the conure’s toes point forward and two point backward in an arrangement called zygodactyl. This enables a parrot to climb up, down, and around trees easily. Some larger parrots also use their feet to hold food or to play with toys.
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