Out on our hike this week we didn’t see anything too exciting -but I did manage to snap this picture of a red-winged blackbird! If I’m honest, the real struggle was getting them to stay still long enough for a photo while my dog was running laps around me.
Red-winged blackbirds are one of the most common birds in North America, and you’ll often see them in the cattails this time of year.
Like most flying birds, they have something called bone pneumatization. This means that some of their bones are hollow! This might make you think that this aids in keeping them light as a feather (haha, see what I did there?) and while that may be somewhat true, studies have shown that the overall weight of a bird skeleton, even with the hollow bone structure, still weighs similar to other animals their size. These hollow bones are simply distributed differently.
But pneumatized bones provide another key feature: extension of the air sacs! Many birds have a unique respiratory system that includes a number of air sacs throughout their body. These allow for continuous air flow to the lungs, during both inhaling and exhaling! Having hollow bones directly connected to these sacs just aids in the process, helping birds do oxygen-demanding activities like flying.
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