{"id":13435,"date":"2019-12-05T19:29:08","date_gmt":"2019-12-06T01:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/windycityparrot.com\/blog\/?p=13435"},"modified":"2019-12-05T19:29:08","modified_gmt":"2019-12-06T01:29:08","slug":"can-extended-loud-noises-hurt-your-birds-ears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/?p=13435","title":{"rendered":"Can Extended Loud Noises Hurt Your Birds Ears?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor’s note:<\/strong> full transparency, I don’t think we’ve ever covered the subject of pet birds and hearing.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Once again a loyal reader comes through with a potentially serious issue that until now we have left opaque.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Many of us take for granted that our birds can hear but exactly how good is their hearing, how has it evolved and how do they use it?<\/span><\/p>\n

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So I’m going to cut out the middleman and present you with a (technical) document that drills down to the heart of the avian hearing subject.<\/span><\/p>\n

What can birds hear<\/a><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Robert C. Beason<\/span>
\nUSDA Wildlife Services, National Wildlife Research Center, Ohio Field Station, Sandusky, Ohio<\/span><\/p>\n

Some excerpts I found interesting<\/span><\/p>\n

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One problem with infrasound and other low frequencies, especially for birds, <\/span>is determination of the direction of the sound source.<\/span><\/p>\n

Because their ears are close together, mechanisms that <\/span>function at higher frequencies are not usable.<\/span><\/p>\n

One <\/span>technique birds could use to locate a sound source would <\/span>be to fly in a circle and use the doppler shifts to determine <\/a><\/span>direction (Quine and Kreithen 1981, Hagstrum 2000).<\/span><\/p>\n

Two problems that birds face, along with humans <\/span>working in environments with loud noises, are damage to <\/span>the hair cell receptors of the auditory system caused by <\/span>overstimulation, and hearing signals above the <\/span>background noise.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pyrotechnics, <\/span>including bangers, poppers, screamers, etc., are biologically relevant sounds because they provide the acoustic information generated by a (human) predator without the<\/span>
\nactual predatory attack<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Endnote<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

BTW, If you have ever heard a train coming from one direction, you’ll have noticed that its sound gets louder as it approaches and begins to dim as it passes.<\/span><\/p>\n

You could tell the direction of the train with your eyes closed, just by the sound.<\/span><\/p>\n

That’s the doppler effect<\/em> at work.<\/span><\/p>\n

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