Bird Watching Curaçao – HOME

Source: Dealing with heat

It is hot in Curaçao. That much is clear. But not everyone sees the effects of this heat on the animals around us. In a dog you can clearly see that he is hot. The animal will be panting. Cats lie upside down in cool places to deal with heat. If you observe closely you will also see that birds in the wild are hot.

Birds have the capacity to maintain a high and constant body temperature and that is why they occur in many places all over the world. In warm places, such as on our island, they have to make sure not to overheat. And that means that birds in the tropics have to ensure a cooling system. This can be done, among other things, by evaporating moisture. This can be compared to the sweating of a human. However, birds do not have sweat glands and have to get rid of the heat in a different way. They do this via their respiratory tract, also with panting. Non-songbirds like gulls do this by vibrating the top of the throat and the inside of the lower beak, which can be seen as a quick vibration with the beak open.

The Laughing Gull in the photo was doing this. The animal was warm, stood with its feet in a cooling pool of water in such a way that the sun did not shine directly on its wings and back (this also ensures that the animal warms up as little as possible) and had its beak open in which the vibrating ‘panting’ was clearly visible. A quick look at the other animals in the group showed exactly the same behavior. Active cooling strategies to survive a warm day.