Category: Birds
Also known as Bengalese finches, these domesticated cage birds are generally considered to be a domestic form of the striated finch (or white-rumped munia). They like to be close together and will all crowd into one nest if kept in housed in a group. They were most likely first cage-bred in China and then later this practice was brought to Japan. Both countries have been breeding society finches for hundreds of years and many varieties exist.
Asleep at the wheel?
Can you imagine spending nearly all of your life in the air? The common swift doesn’t have to - it just does! From the day this bird learns to fly, it almost never touches the ground voluntarily - it eats, drinks, mates, and may even sleep while flying. While sleep walking can be problematic in humans, many birds have the ability to enter a state called unihemispheric slow-wave sleep, where one half of the brain sleeps as the other remains alert. This method of “sleeping with one eye open,” is a great way to avoid becoming another animal’s meal, and has led to the suspicion that these birds, who almost never willingly land, also sleep while in flight!
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