Granted this topic is pretty silly, but maybe good for a Friday smile.
We all know what "keeping time to the music," means, especially when dancing. We tap our feet, bob our heads, snap our fingers, shuffle our feet, and contort our bodies in time to the rhythm of the music we are hearing or dancing to. We probably have a good time doing so, too. All the while we have also always probably been assuming, if we thought about
it at all, that we humans are the only animal species that can do this.
Well, it turns out that birds can do it too, especially parrots and cockatoos. That is, dance and keep a rhythmic beat to music they hear. The video below shows birds bobbing their beaks and moving their bodies up and down, clearly keeping a beat and dancing in time to music being played for them.
When I first saw this video (and there are a bunch of others like it on the web) I naturally thought that it had been altered, photoshopped or something, to make it just appear that those birds were actually keeping time to the music.
But apparently this phenomenon is for real. It seems that at least some species of birds can actually do this, just like people can.
The video, sponsored by National Geographic BTW, also goes a bit into the possible science of why this is so, why birds can do it.
Additional reading reveals that a number of bird experts see a possible evolutionary reason for this. Clearly, song-singing is a major bird activity (defending territory, attracting mates, etc.) so anything that enhances this activity may help them survive. So maybe being able to keep a musical beat has evolved in at least some (or maybe even all) bird species for this reason, and has some purpose in the wild, possibly even one we are not aware of yet.
So, while maybe all this could be thought to fall into the category of Stupid Pet Tricks, it may also be the case that, instead of a cracker, what Polly really wants is a groovin' beat.
news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/04/090430-birds-dance-rhythm.html