![]() ![]() The backward-facing toes can rotate sideways to gain a more stable purchase on a tree trunk. ![]() The two forward-facing toes help them climb and cling to trees. Woodpeckers generally have two toes facing forward and two backward in what is called a zygodactyl arrangement. There are webbed feet and lobed feet and powerfully sharp talons. A few have only three toes, or a digit 1 that has shrunken to the point of disuse. Some other birds have two toes forward and two back. Songbirds have what McGowan called “generalized all-purpose bird feet.” This group has the most common avian foot arrangement: digit 1 (which McGowan likened to a human thumb) faces backwards digits 2, 3, and 4 face forward. The feet consist mainly of bones and tendons, with very little muscle and few blood vessels. The backward-bending joint we may consider a knee is actually the birds’ ankle. From that, they’ve evolved in a number of different ways for various reasons.”īirds walk on those toes – not the entire foot. “All the birds basically started off with three toes forward, one back. “When you look at the foot of a bird, they’re not all the same,” said Kevin McGowan of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Rarely have I considered feet in my casual observations, although this part of a bird’s anatomy can be highly specialized for various uses. I look through binoculars at their feathers, the color variations along head and chest, the size of their beaks, the shape of their wings, and the tilt of their tails in my flailing attempts to distinguish one species from another. As spring’s crescendo of birdsong mellows now to a steadier summer trill, I listen for melodies I don’t recognize and try to figure out which birds are singing. ![]()
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