Birds’ body temperatures vary between 100° and 110°F and average about 104°F.
Birds don’t have sweat glands. Instead, they’ve evolved a variety of other ways to keep cool.
One of them is panting. As the bird breathes rapidly, its throat quivering, heat’s carried out of its body via the lungs and air sacs.
The lungs are a one-way system, so cool air coming in doesn’t get mixed up with warm air coming out.
Holding its bill open, the bird also oscillates a tiny bone in a part of its throat where there are a lot of blood vessels. The oscillations bring more blood to the area, allowing heat from the blood to dissipate.
Bare skin on the legs, face, and beak also help the cooling. So do puffing out feathers, fluttering wings, or splashing in a puddle or birdbath.
Soaring birds like hawks can simply ride the updrafts far above ground, to where the air is cooler.
Closer to the ground, birds can also do what we do to avoid overheating, take it easy in the shade as the day heats up.
My first summer here I thought one of the ravens was dead.He was propped up against the window with his beak wide open.He must have been there for 10 minutes before he walked away.
I’ve seen a bunch of videos of people giving birds water or pouring water over them. I didn’t realize birds didn’t sweat. I just thought the birds got hot just like humans would out in the sun.
They get hot. They have no sweat glands. They have other ways of cooling down, as mentioned above.
Their core temperature is over 100 degrees, that means they have more tolerance for the heat.
