[HN Gopher] Why woodpeckers can hammer without getting headaches...
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Why woodpeckers can hammer without getting headaches (2022)
Author : sandebert
Score : 63 points
Date : 2023-05-01 07:53 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.birdwatchingdaily.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.birdwatchingdaily.com)
| doomrobo wrote:
| This explanation is apparently controversial
|
| https://www.science.org/content/article/contrary-popular-bel...
| endorphine wrote:
| > Whether digging for food, constructing housing, or luring
| mates, woodpeckers bang their heads into trees about 20 times
| per second.
|
| Is that correct? I can't wrap my head around this, how is it
| possible that they do it so fast?
| sqren wrote:
| If you've ever heard a wood pecker in action, 20/second
| doesn't sound completely crazy
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6XOyUey4nQ
| ranting-moth wrote:
| Interesting how its more like a bouncing ball easing off
| the bounce, instead of a pneumatic hammer.
| willis936 wrote:
| Scaling laws help.
| lolcatuser wrote:
| I don't know how they work internally, but I can say that
| power hammers used for blacksmithing sound similar to the
| woodpecker in the video, only _much_ slower. A couple
| hard, fast hits with absurd force before slowing down and
| stopping.
|
| I'm guessing the woodpecker behaves that way because it's
| putting momentum into the hitting, even if that doesn't
| totally make sense in my head. When hammering on
| something, it's easiest to let the gravity do most of the
| work and focus your effort on aiming and raising the
| hammer, so you naturally have 1-2 hits that are solely
| momentum based at the end.
|
| The woodpecker is horizontal, though, - not pecking in
| line with gravity - so my thought process isn't a perfect
| analogue. But if their tongue works like a spring then I
| can imagine it making sense.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| How do we know they don't get headaches? Did they ask them?
| [deleted]
| m463 wrote:
| I believe they look for evidence of rejected mating advances
| around bedtime.
| theWreckluse wrote:
| So, this only accounts for headaches that make you less
| sexually active?
| ofalkaed wrote:
| That is a fairly amazing tongue. Had a flicker in the yard the
| other day but did not get to see that tongue, will have to watch
| for it in the future.
| kyleblarson wrote:
| We have lots of northern flickers where I live and they seem
| particularly keen to machine gun hammer on the eaves of my
| house at 5am.
| blincoln wrote:
| If you haven't already, you should check to see if you have
| rot or some kind of insect infestation. Around here, at
| least, they typically only go after wood with bugs inside.
| olyjohn wrote:
| Those fuckers woild pound on my gutters for hours. Never
| once on anything other than the aluminum gutters. But they
| love the loud hammering sound, as it calls out to potential
| mates. So when they find something loud they will tend to
| come back to it.
| Arrath wrote:
| A couple years ago a wooden power pole (well specked with
| woodpecker drilled holes over the decades) in my backyard
| was replaced with a fiberglass one. At least one local
| woodpecker hasn't realized the futility of hammering on
| it to the tune of honestly almost cartoonish hollow BONK
| BONK BONK sounds, and continues to try to find a meal in
| the thing.
|
| I feel bad for the bird at this point.
| m463 wrote:
| hummingbirds also have similar tongues, not certain if they
| wrap around the head.
| jessriedel wrote:
| > The woodpecker's head strikes with at least 1,000 times the
| force of gravity (1,000 g), yet the bird suffers no apparent
| harm. By contrast, any human who experienced a 100 g impact would
| surely die.
|
| Nope, not true. 100 g accelerations of the human head (not just
| the helmet) happen routinely in football.
|
| > VT researchers gather data with the Head Impact Telemetry
| System, which employs sensors and wireless transmitters in
| helmets. "We see 100-g impacts all the time," says Stefan Duma,
| director of the university's Center for Injury Biomechanics, "and
| several over 150 g's."
|
| https://www.popularmechanics.com/adventure/sports/a2954/4212...
|
| In generally, using g's (acceleration) to measure impact severity
| is fraught because the damage is also highly dependent on the
| during of the impact. Just a few g's is enough to kill if
| sustained for long enough. Fighter pilots can handle 8-9 gees for
| a second or two, but will pass out after longer. But a human can
| handle way more from brief (sub second) impacts.
| m463 wrote:
| Just watched the movie "Concussion" with Will Smith.
|
| Sort of amazing the sort of punishment football players heads
| withstand... but they DO die much earlier in life with lots of
| complications.
|
| "The woodpecker's tongue extends through the back of the mouth
| out of the nostril, encircling the entire cranium. It is the
| anatomical equivalent of a safety belt for its brain. Human
| beings? Not a single piece of our anatomy protects us from
| those types of collisions. A human being will get concussed at
| sixty G's."
|
| also: "The Cape gannet. A diving
| bird capable of generating speeds of up to 75 miles per
| hour, turning itself into a missile as it
| collides with the face of the sea. The red-head
| woodpecker can absorb a G-force of 1,000, pecking a
| tree 12,000 times per day, 85 million times over its
| lifetime. Bighorn sheep can generate..."
| "Bennet." "Okay, okay."
| gnarbarian wrote:
| the impulse (force/time) is probably a better measure
| silisili wrote:
| I'm somewhat convinced woodpeckers are smart, conniving
| creatures.
|
| I always kept suet out, and they love it. All hours of the day,
| hanging upside down eating at it.
|
| But, if I ever forgot to replace it when it ran empty, I'd be
| awaken at the crack of dawn by a woodpecker hammering the window
| awning. Only when the suet was empty.
|
| Maybe it's coincidence, but I like to believe he was trying to
| remind me they needed more suet in the most annoying way.
| darkerside wrote:
| Or, if they couldn't find the easy food, they had to go dig for
| grubs in the trees
| silisili wrote:
| Well, that would be a natural explanation if it were any of
| the 10 thousand nearby trees, or telephone poles even, and
| not the window awning.
|
| But it could just coincidentally be there were a lot of bugs
| in that awning, admittedly.
| darkerside wrote:
| Sounds like instinct at play. Woodpecker found a food
| source, came back and it was dried up, and naturally, it
| started digging to find more where that came from.
|
| But what do I know, I'm just Monday morning armchair
| ornithologist!
| macabe wrote:
| Afraid to admit how long I've pondered the incredible
| evolutionary feat that is the woodpecker.
| [deleted]
| kerblang wrote:
| Had a woodpecker in the hood a few years ago that liked to bang
| on metal lightpoles, to no ill effect. The apparent spouse would
| usually come shoo them off the pole after awhile, unproductive as
| such work is. Made quite a noise though.
| rzzzt wrote:
| "Everything the light touches" is "within earshot" for
| woodpeckers, so they do like to hammer away on such items:
| https://youtu.be/F0v-CukKW5Y
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(page generated 2023-05-01 23:01 UTC)