eli5: How can birds stabilize their heads so well?

Question

eli5: How can birds stabilize their heads so well?

In: Biology

Answer 1

The same way we stabilise our eyes so well. Our ears have balance organs inside them, in something called the vestibule. The fastest reflex in the human body is called the vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR), and makes our eyes twitch when we move. Try walking or running along whilst filming a video on your phone. Things look fairly normal as you look with your eyes. But the video will look like it’s jumping all over. This is because the VOR moves your eyes to stabilise what you see.

Birds do a similar thing. But instead of just pointing their eyes in a different direction, they move their heads. I don’t know if this is because it’s better that way because of how their eyes are positioned, but that’s the jist of it.