The brains of some birds shrink in the winter to lighten the bird’s body mass. And remembering where they cached food for the winter helps chickadees produce new brain neurons. You don’t hear much birdsong in the fall. This is non-breeding season, so courtship or territorial song is unnecessary. So unnecessary, in fact, that in certain species, Song Sparrows for example, the part of the brain used for song shrinks. This makes song impossible while reducing the weight the bird must carry. Wild chickadees, active in fall storing food for winter, produce three times as many new brain neurons as captive chickadees, which need not remember where those sunflower seeds were hidden. Aging human brains are supposed to benefit from challenging use. The same appears to apply to backyard birds. This information comes from reports published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The photo is of a Black-capped Chickadee.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 9th, 2008 at 9:21 am and is filed under Backyard birding, Bird biology, Bird feeding. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.