Eli5 Why do birds have such twitchy movement?

Question

Compared to mammals, birds seem to have this jerky, almost robotic quality to the way they move. I was wondering if there’s any explanation for this

In: 1836

Answer 1

Where are the answers that address the twitchy movements? All the top answers are about bird eyes, which doesn’t explain the twitchy quality of the movement. Sure, they need to move their heads around a lot to see, doesn’t mean they couldn’t theoretically move their heads in a smooth way.

Now, I’ve heard it’s because bird muscles have more “white meat” and that type of muscle is for fast bursts of movement. Whereas us mammals have more red meat, which is a type of muscle that does more continuous movement. But you know, I’m not an expert on this, so…