Perching and hopping behaviour of small garden birds: A micro-video and a short note

Small garden birds have small feet with no feathers. Their anisodactyl feet three toes pointing forward and one toe backward.

Their feet are almost feeling-less since their feet have few nerves and blood vessels. This adaptation allows small perches such as wires or fences when the weather is extreme cold or hot.

One may notice, as soon as a small perching bird starts to move, I bounces up to a perch and hop from perch to perch as captured in the micro-video.

Bird watching and photographing them can be a good hobby that has the therapeutic effect too. Small birds are more interesting to watch since they have unique ways of moving, perching, feeding and flying.

It is their behaviour that informs how these birds differ. With bird watching one becomes good at recognizing birds by their behaviour. However, one must find time watching them with patience and have camera sense.

One needs examine the bird posture first - both horizontal and vertical aspects. Thereafter, watch the bird's perching behaviour and perch height preference

Small singing and chirping birds optimize their signal transmission by perching in exposed locations but they allow more time to vigilance between chirps and hops.