# How do birds know what to eat? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 20, 2003, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-birds-know-what-to-eat/208457 "2003-10-20T03:21:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![jezzaOZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a9a28c/32.png) [@jezzaOZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jezzaOZ)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2015, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-birds-know-what-to-eat/208457/21 "2015-04-21T05:58:08Z")
I have a chicken that when young thought its toes were worms or something and spent a lot of time trying to eat them. It wasn’t quite bright enough to connect the pain in its toes with the act of pecking. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2015, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-birds-know-what-to-eat/208457/22 "2015-04-21T11:31:06Z")
Chicks spend a heck of a lot of time pecking at everything within reach. Eventually they learn what is worth pecking at to eat. Other birds will follow their parents to feeding areas and learn by example. (We switched the Bipperbird from seed to a pellet diet with occasional table scraps nearly ten years ago. Nasty bastard is still going strong.) ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2015, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-birds-know-what-to-eat/208457/23 "2015-04-21T11:54:05Z")
> [@Darwins\_Finch](#): > > Birds _do_ have tongues, ya know. They can taste food, and choose not to eat anything which they don’t care for, just like, well, you or me. Example: I have two cockatiels which have wildly varying tastes: one will eat just about anything that people eat (including chicken!), while the other couldn’t care less for most of it. Both enjoy various breakfast cereals, though. > > However, birds do tend to have rather poorly-developed senses of taste when compared to mammals. But, they don’t typically keep food in their mouths for extended periods, so only taste their food briefly. It is thought that other cues, such as texture or “squishiness”, also figure into how a bird determines how palatable a given item might be. And, of course, particular “tastes” vary from species to species. Absolutely priceless query/response Doper Name combo. How do birds know what to eat? They’re all issued a handbook. It’s packed in the shell. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2015, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-birds-know-what-to-eat/208457/24 "2015-04-21T13:16:41Z")
I watch the birds in my garden - we get quite a few of all kinds, large pigeons and small finches. What I find strange is that a pigeon will drop a tasty chunk of cake to chase a sparrow off another piece and then forget the piece he had. The small birds are no threat at all, so why do they do that? I also notice that when a crow comes calling, most of the others leave. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2015, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-birds-know-what-to-eat/208457/25 "2015-04-21T16:12:53Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > I watch the birds in my garden - we get quite a few of all kinds, large pigeons and small finches. What I find strange is that a pigeon will drop a tasty chunk of cake to chase a sparrow off another piece and then forget the piece he had. The small birds are no threat at all, so why do they do that? > > I also notice that when a crow comes calling, most of the others leave. because they are bird brains. ---
**Author:** ![purplehorseshoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/purplehorseshoe/32/2996_2.png) [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2015, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-birds-know-what-to-eat/208457/26 "2015-04-21T16:43:30Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > I watch the birds in my garden - we get quite a few of all kinds, large pigeons and small finches. What I find strange is that a pigeon will drop a tasty chunk of cake to chase a sparrow off another piece and then forget the piece he had. The small birds are no threat at all, so why do they do that? Territorialism is a separate instinct from hunger. > [@bob\_2](#): > > … I also notice that when a crow comes calling, most of the others leave. Crows are large, powerful, intelligent, and aggressive. You bet your ass the [del]peace doves[/del] pigeons GTFO when the crows show up. ---
**Author:** ![Darwins\_Finch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darwins_finch/32/20304_2.png) [@Darwins\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darwins_Finch)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2015, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-birds-know-what-to-eat/208457/27 "2015-04-22T14:04:15Z")
Google “bird plastic stomach” (without quotes) for some rather gruesome photos of birds who did not, in fact, know what to eat. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2015, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-birds-know-what-to-eat/208457/28 "2015-04-22T18:42:12Z")
> [@purplehorseshoe](#): > > Crows are large, powerful, intelligent, and aggressive. You bet your ass the [del]peace doves[/del] pigeons GTFO when the crows show up. Not at our feeders. The mourning doves and the smaller birds all stick around and it’s the crows that scatter at any possible threat (like me opening the window on the second floor). Very little disturbs those placid mourning doves. ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2015, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-birds-know-what-to-eat/208457/29 "2015-04-22T19:23:33Z")
I think the question still looms here as how do birds know what to eat. It seems like sea birds are the worst for ingesting inedible items. Possibly because prior to civilization nearly anything that floated was edible. They likely just evolved to scavenge the surface with little danger. ``` Quite a few seed eaters do seem to be very selective, seeds have very little taste and are not chewed prior to swallowing so it still seems like a mystery as to how they know what they like and whats not poisonous. Seed eaters were likley exposed to a wide variety of potentially dangerous seeds they they would have had to evolve a method for discerning proper foods. I wonder if you took one of their favorite foods and died it in different colors if pigeons could tell the difference. ``` ---
**Author:** ![Darwins\_Finch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darwins_finch/32/20304_2.png) [@Darwins\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darwins_Finch)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2015, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-birds-know-what-to-eat/208457/30 "2015-04-22T20:08:32Z")
> [@HoneyBadgerDC](#): > > I wonder if you took one of their favorite foods and died it in different colors if pigeons could tell the difference. Over time, they would most likely learn. [Here](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2267778/) is a paper which discusses how previous experience comes into play in selecting food. One finding in particular: > [@](#): > > We thus suggest that birds learn to prioritize cues related to metabolic feedback or taste over visual cues when selecting food in a variable environment. ---
**Author:** ![Darwins\_Finch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darwins_finch/32/20304_2.png) [@Darwins\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darwins_Finch)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2015, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-birds-know-what-to-eat/208457/31 "2015-04-22T20:10:58Z")
[Here’s another paper [pdf]](http://www.biologie.uni-freiburg.de/data/bio1/schaefer/pdf/anim-behav03.pdf) that discusses foraging and food choices in birds (tanagers in particular). ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2015, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-birds-know-what-to-eat/208457/32 "2015-04-22T20:37:41Z")
My biggest puzzlement is figuring out how birds know that those cylindrical things I hang in the yard are full of goodies. Nothing in nature looks very much like a bird feeder. Yet the seed eaters show up within minutes of a feeder being filled. Nor does a suet feeder look very much like a branch full of grubs. Yet my downy woodpeckers have figured it out and seem very much to prefer suet to banging their heads against trees. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2015, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-birds-know-what-to-eat/208457/33 "2015-04-22T21:05:15Z")
> [@Finagle](#): > > My biggest puzzlement is figuring out how birds know that those cylindrical things I hang in the yard are full of goodies. Nothing in nature looks very much like a bird feeder. Yet the seed eaters show up within minutes of a feeder being filled. > > Nor does a suet feeder look very much like a branch full of grubs. Yet my downy woodpeckers have figured it out and seem very much to prefer suet to banging their heads against trees. I’ve always wondered this too! ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2015, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-birds-know-what-to-eat/208457/34 "2015-04-22T21:15:46Z")
how did you figure a hotdog was food? ---
**Author:** ![bubba001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f17d59/32.png) [@bubba001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bubba001)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2015, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-birds-know-what-to-eat/208457/35 "2015-04-22T22:41:18Z")
I’ve had chickens for years. I think they will try to eat anything, even each other. They will even eat their own eggs, sometimes. I had a horse that had a fly bite get infected on it’s back. I had to move the chickens away because they kept pecking on the horse, every time the horse tried to lay down. They will go after some dead animal like they are starving! ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2015, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-birds-know-what-to-eat/208457/36 "2015-04-23T03:11:46Z")
> [@grude](#): > > The pigeons I feed in a park want bread, only bread, and they go ga ga over it. I’ve seen others toss the moldiest, nastiest, hard as a rock bread and they will spend an hour picking it apart. > > I tried feeding em seeds one time, nope. Some old jar of poppy seed, nope. Stale popcorn, nope. I have seen them ignore fried rice some slob left on a table, eat only the bread and ignore the chickpeas in a food. > > An old woman told me they like bread and mushy bananas. The pigeons on our balcony, we tried feeding them bread, but they turned their noses up at it. Wouldn’t touch it. The ants liked it though. When we were first feeding them, we tried mynah food, and they wouldn’t touch that. Now we use specially enriched dove food. It seems pigeons and doves are related, and they go crazy over this. But again, the pidgees will leave the green seeds alone until the very end, and even then they may not touch them. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2015, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-birds-know-what-to-eat/208457/37 "2015-04-23T03:26:24Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > It seems pigeons and doves are related A pigeon is a rock dove, isn’t it? > **[Columbidae](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbidae)** > > See text > Columbidae (/kəˈlʌmbɪdiː/ kə-LUM-bih-dee) is a bird family consisting of doves and pigeons. It is the only family in the order Columbiformes. These are stout-bodied birds with short necks and short slender bills that in some species feature fleshy ceres. They primarily feed on plants, and can be taxonomically divided amongst granivores, that feed mostly on the ground on seeds, and frugivores, that feed mostly on fruits, from branches. The family occurs worldwide, often in close pr... > **[Rock dove](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_dove)** > > The rock dove, rock pigeon, or common pigeon (/ˈpɪdʒ.ən/ also /ˈpɪdʒ.ɪn/; Columba livia) is a member of the bird family Columbidae (doves and pigeons).: 624  In common usage, it is often simply referred to as the "pigeon", although this is the wild form of the bird; the pigeons most familiar to people are the domesticated form of the wild rock dove. > The domestic pigeon (Columba livia domestica, which includes about 1,000 different breeds) descended from this species. Escaped domestic pigeons ... ---
**Author:** ![purplehorseshoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/purplehorseshoe/32/2996_2.png) [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2015, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-birds-know-what-to-eat/208457/38 "2015-04-23T13:21:40Z")
> [@gigi](#): > > Not at our feeders. The mourning doves and the smaller birds all stick around and it’s the crows that scatter at any possible threat (like me opening the window on the second floor). Very little disturbs those placid mourning doves. Ground-feeders like mourning doves usually freeze at the 1st signs of danger – their camouflage is so good that this generally renders them invisible. (They’re rather clumsy, noisy flyers, so an immediate takeoff just attracts attention instead.) Think of how rabbits will freeze, ears flattened, and hope you just don’t see them. ---
**Author:** ![am77494](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d2c977/32.png) [@am77494](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/am77494)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2015, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-birds-know-what-to-eat/208457/39 "2015-04-23T13:27:41Z")
> [@Zenster](#): > > **Parrots** , grosbeaks and many other species also have beak structures specifically adapted to cracking open only certain kinds of seeds and are \*\*not drawn to other food sources like fruit \*\*or nectar. \ This is very contrary to my observation for parrots - especially Indian parrots (specifically Indian ringneck parakeet). Growing up in India, we had guava and mango trees in our backyard and from the ground you’d see that a fruit is just ripe and when you excitedly went to pick it, you’d see that the hidden side of the fruit has been eaten by a parrot :smack: I have also seen flocks of parrots on fruit trees happily (and noisily) munching on ripe fruit. In my experience parrots love eating fruits and berries - especially tropical fruits. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-birds-know-what-to-eat/208457.md?page=1)