How do birds keep cool in the summer? | U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
How do birds keep cool in the summer? | U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
o you ever wonder how birds stay cool on hot summer days? We at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service want to share some insights! Like people, birds can withstand changes in the weather and maintain their body temperature whether it’s hot or cold outside, but there are limits. When summer temperatures are on the rise, birds depend on adaptations to keep from overheating.
Many adaptations are different variations of thermoregulation, the mechanism that warm-blooded animals use to balance their body temperature with their surroundings. Thermoregulation is a process where warmer blood cools and then circulates throughout the body, lowering the animal’s overall body temperature. It can take many forms and is a window into understanding how our physical world works. To understand how birds have adapted these cooling techniques, we need a quick overview of how thermal energy - or heat - moves from one thing to another. Simply put, heat moves in one direction, from hot toward cold. The movement of heat happens on a molecular level in all matter, whether it’s solid, liquid or gas. It’s within this principle that birds are able to transfer their body temperature to cooler air and water around them.