Audubon Society Shares Fascinating Video of How Female Birds Incubate Their Eggs
As a lover of nature and someone absolutely fascinated by all types of wildlife, there's not a lot I haven't seen. That is, until, The Audubon Society posted a clip on August 17 of a female Northern Cardinal and her brood patch.
What's a brood patch you may be wondering? Check out the clip posted by @Audubonsociety and then we can discuss.
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First of all, that is so wild looking! I have never seen anything like that before! It's almost .. otherworldly. The video explains that during the breeding season, a female bird develops a brood patch on her lower abdomen. When that happens, her feathers drop off and her skin thickens, allowing her to keep her eggs and her young warm while incubating them.
TikTok users are at once fascinated and sort of appalled by this. @Mary comments, "I love this but I was also never meant to see this." Another user replied, "I feel like I disrespected that cardinal's privacy watching this. I'm sorry ma'am." @Wills adds, "Was I the only one who thought it was a Venus flytrap connected to her." @Vienna hilariously replies, "I don’t think humans are supposed to know this."
It makes sense that a lot of us have never seen this before, because it's not like a lot of us are able to catch a cardinal and look up her skirt, or um, at her brood patch.
Once the eggs hatch the brood patch still serves a purpose, because the parent bird will press its brood patch against the the little birds to keep them warm, especially during their early days when they cannot regulate their body temperature very well.
Once the babies are older, the brood patch grows feather over it once again and we can all sleep well at night. Just kidding! It is sort of weird looking but nature is awesome.
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