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
Have you ever watched how twitchy human eyes are when scanning? Birds are essentially doing that with their entire head and body. They have a much different field of view and different way of seeing the world. Their eyes were less able to move or see around them… or more importantly their ancestors had that.
Bird that takes in more information efficiently survives longer. Reproduces. Evolution and all.
Our brain and eyes do all those fast twitchy movements automatically and fill in the gaps to give us this illusion of one constant world around us. They are just doing that.
Notice how the movements involving looking around are twitchy. They have smooth motion further away from their heads. Hopping and walking are smooth if you’ve ever seen it.
All of that combined with being generally lightweight and small makes the movements seem lightning fast to our human scale.
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