الاثنين، 11 يوليو 2016

The Nests of the Swallow

Darussalam Publishers & Distributors
The Nests of the Swallow
• There are some birds that hide their nests below the ground, such as a kind of swallow that lives in coastal regions. It digs a channel parallel to the sea shore or river bank, and these channels are usually dug on the edge of hills formed of soil. These birds dig channels that are curved in the front so as to prevent rain water entering the nest. At the end of every channel there is a chamber filled with straw and feathers, where the bird lives.
• Another kind of swallow that lives in Latin America builds its nests on the rocks behind waterfalls. This place is far away from the danger posed by other birds such as seagulls and fish-eaters. No doubt the tons of falling water will be fatal to any bird that passes through, but this kind of swallow is distin-guished by its small size and swift movement through the waterfall; hence, it is not harmed. In this way the bird and its chicks and nest remain safe from the danger of other animals.
This bird does not use its talons to collect the raw material for building its nest, because its talons are very small. So instead it picks up pieces of dry grass or feathers that it finds floating in the air, and it excretes a special substance to turn them into a kind of sticky paste with which it builds its nest on the rocks.
• The swallow that lives on the coasts of the Indian Ocean builds its nests inside caves. High waves block the entrances to these caves, so that when these birds want to enter their nests, they ride the top of these waves, waiting for the moment when they drop and expose the entrance to the cave, whereupon they seize the opportunity to enter the cave and go to their nests.
Before starting to build its nest, this bird marks the highest point that the waves reach inside the cave, then it starts to build its nest at a level higher than the highest point that the water reaches.
• There is a bird that lives in Africa which is called the secretary bird. It builds its nest in the tops of tall thorny trees, far from the danger of its enemies.
• The woodpecker that lives in the southwest of America builds its nest in holes that it makes in the trunk of the plant called Opuntas ficus-indica, which is a kind of cactus which produces the “prickly pear” fruit.
• Swamp birds build a number of nests as decoys alongside the real nest. The male builds these decoy nests and moves from one to another to attract attention to these nests, instead of the nest that the female is building.
[from “Scientific Miracles in the Oceans & Animals” by “Yusuf Al-Hajj Ahmad”, published by Darus-salam, 2010]

ليست هناك تعليقات:

إرسال تعليق