This is session 2, instructed by Connie Sidles an online Zoom class, Best Foot Forward: How Birds' Feet Define Their Lives. The class is recorded for those who registered.
© Photo by Doug Parrott
This Pied-billed Grebe is using its foot to preen.
Birds, like humans, are bipedal; and like humans, this fact has freed their (and our) upper limbs for other purposes. In our case, it was hands. In the avian world, it was wings. But because wings are specialized for flying, birds cannot use them as "tools" to grasp, tear, catch, preen, build nests and do all the other tasks of daily living. Instead, birds use their feet. To understand how a bird lives, look down and study its feet. They are, by turns, lethal, cute, feathery, scaly, aerodynamic, hydrodynamic, colorful, long, short and always, always useful. Follow master birder Connie Sidles as she explores this aspect of bird life. You'll never look at birds the same way again.