Do birds dream?

[entrancedbymyGCC]

I would guess in a bird, drooling must mean that fluid is coming up from the (empty) crop. What I've read with Capes (there are also posts on the defunct Cape forum) it's primarily when they are sleepy or sleeping, and only occasionally. Maybe because they have such big heads? Dunno.

[Azure Hanyo]

I would guess in a bird, drooling must mean that fluid is coming up from the (empty) crop. What I've read with Capes (there are also posts on the defunct Cape forum) it's primarily when they are sleepy or sleeping, and only occasionally. Maybe because they have such big heads? Dunno.

For some reason... Capes and Jardine's remind me of living avian bobbleheads...

[entrancedbymyGCC]

OK, so the answer to the original question is that birds DO have REM sleep, like mammals, and therefore it is entirely probable they do dream.

I finally actually opened up "The Parrot Behavior Manual" and it has a chapter on Birds and Sleep. I did not have time to read the whole thing, but I scanned the section on sleep studies and they did observe both Slow Wave Sleep and REM. Cool.

I think I'm going to like this book. It's not an easy read, it's more like a slightly de-jargonized conference proceedings, being a selection of more or less scholarly articles about Parrots. The title is a bit misleading, but I've already learned two things and I just opened the book this morning.

[Michael]

That book may be interesting but it is definitely quite useless. It is absolutely not a manual of any sort. Certainly the knowledge may be interesting and add to your understanding of birds but I don't think I've found anything that can be applied from that book. It's quite boring to read although it is interesting.

[entrancedbymyGCC]

I'm going to disagree with Michael on this one. I don't think it is EVER useless to learn more about the animals we care for. And I don't find the material in this book so loftily academic that it is, in the words of my graduate quantum mechanics professor (who thought this was a good thing, I think) "General, very general, so general... that you can't actually apply it to anything!). I think when I get through it, I will know a heck of a lot more about what makes parrots tick, and that while I won't be able to take a thing from the book and DO it, it will give me an improved context from which to make all the decisions that we make about our birds, all the time.

No, it isn't a manual.

No, it won't give you a prescription for how to DO anything.

BUT, I think it has 10 times the information content of the remainder of my parrot library, which is now about 30" of shelf space (the horse library is a whole bookcase, I like books). IMO, worth it!

[Michael]

Really, I'm in complete agreement with you. I meant useless in a direct application sense. It is interesting. It is good knowledge. It is good to be better informed about something you deal with (parrots). I'm just saying that the book is strictly peripheral/supplementary knowledge rather than any practical manual or guide.