Every fall, the story about drunken waxworms is gaining popularity: birds are pushed by a fermented mountain ash, and then they fall directly onto the streets. In such publications, they usually advise putting a bird in a safe place so that it comes to their senses, or even arrange a bird detector on her balcony. We decided to check the story of feathered drunkards, as well as study whether to follow the recommendations for their salvation.

Warning about drunk birds come from different regions of Russia: Moscow, St. Petersburg, Chelyabinsk, Samara, Novosibirsk, Tyumen, Vologda, Kirovskaya, Lipetsk And Kaluga regions. However, the messages vary in details. So, in some posts about Moscow and the Moscow region it is stated that drunken waxworms - Autumn phenomenon (“Usually bullfinches, waxworms and other birds - lovers of berries are drunk with warm and wet autumn”, in others - winter (“In winter, due to temperature differences, its fruits [mountain ash] can be thrown right on the branches, and the birds, having tasted the berry, are drunk”), and thirdly-in the third- Spring (“Drunk wards are noticed in the Moscow Region. These birds appear in cities in early spring, when there is nothing to eat in the forests and you have to move closer to people”). Journalists of some media joke About drunken birds: “Here you are walking along the street, you see - there is a waxworm of Vradbadan, bypass him, do not pester him. If he himself does not stick to you, of course. Well, I drank a bird, maybe she had a difficult week " or "Drunk feathered: among the capital's birds there were" Alcoholics involuntarily. " Popular And numerous photos lying On Earth birds - claims that it is Haughters Waxer.

Waxer - Birds detachment of sparrows, living in coniferous and mixed forests of the northern hemisphere. In summer, they feed mainly with insects and their larvae, the diet also includes berries and young plants of plants. In cold weather, the basis of the diet is berries and fruits. Waxer - birds Migratory, they spend summer in the northern latitudes (marked with pink on the map), where they lay eggs and raise chicks, and migrate to the south in the fall (marked with blue).

And although the basis of the winter nutrition of these birds is indeed a mountain ash, the stories about the drunken waxworms biologists question.

The first thing that alarms is in them is the very statement about the drunk berries. Not any autumn-winter temperature contributes to fermentation and fermentation of berries. Senior researcher at the Zoomusey of Moscow State University, ornithologist Olga Volcit explains: "The mountain ash is not fermented on the trees, it only dries, and not wanders." In more detail, the process is explained by the senior researcher at the Timiryazev State Biological Museum Anton Ivanov: “When we simply leave the berries, there is also a fermentation process, bacteria that process this sugar appear there. But this process needs high temperatures, but here they tell about drunk birds all the time in winter. ” In the fall, berries are usually thrown away Do not have time, then, when the minus temperature occurs, they freeze and only thaw in the spring, which makes the process of fermentation possible. It continues until the concentration of ethanol stops the metabolism of yeast. Then ethanol is oxidized by bacteria to acetic acid. It turns out a fairly narrow temporary window when ethanol is generally contained in berries.

The second strangeness in history with drunk birds is that animals that feed on fruits contain a lot of alcohol dehydrogenase - an enzyme responsible for processing alcohol. His activity The waxworms are 6.2 times higher than in the also belonging to the same family of sparrows and 15 times higher than in the mainly seeds of starlings. Because of this, the rate of ethanol metabolism in waxworms is extremely high-900 mg/kg/h. For comparison, the normal rate of ethanol metabolism in humans It is 180 mg/kg/h, that is, five times less than bird. Moreover, evolution Give me These birds are a large liver - it is 4.9% of the total mass of their body. A liver A person is only 2% of his weight. Such a significant -significant liver should allow birds to eat even fermented berries without significant health risks.

At the same time, waxed in winter, indeed Eat The amazing number of berries is 800-1000 pieces per day, or twice as much body weight. Therefore, an overeated waxworm can experience problems with coordination and crash into surrounding objects. Moreover, these birds are accustomed to inhabitation in the forest, so in the city even for sober birds there are danger of any transparent barriers: window glasses, plastic transparent bus stops, windows, etc. Some countries, concerned about this problem, establish special bus stops with stamps located equally at an equal distance. Such appeared, for example, in Poland.

According to the Polish Foundation "Glass Traps", from injuries obtained in a collision with transparent surfaces, in the country dies up to a million birds per year.

Megan Larivi, coordinator of the Laboratory of the Government Agency Environment Yukon in Canada, Explainsthat a convenient alcohol tiner for birds simply does not exist. Moreover, a person cannot always distinguish a bird with a significant content of alcohol in the blood from its sober counterparts. First of all, intoxication causes a violation of coordination of movements in the flight, which can lead to the fact that the bird will crash into something and get injuries.

In March 1974, in Canada, 16 waxworms were discovered The dead, before that they ate the broken fruits of the apple tree, and flew off it, crashed into the windows and walls of the nearest building. In April 1989, in the United States, two waxworms Died, falling from the roof. The cause of death was an internal hemorrhage as a result of a blow to the Earth, a high content of ethanol in the blood was also noted. In 2012, in the suburbs of Los Angeles, California, there were also discovered Dead waxworms - they also died as a result of injury, ethanol was also discovered in their blood. It turns out that in all cases the cause of death was a clash, and ethanol led to a violation of coordination. In one of the viral photographs of supposedly drunken waxworms just depicted A flock of waxwoods that crashed before the eyes of eyewitnesses into a bus stop - 14 birds died, one survived.

However, usually in the media reports we are not talking about the birds crashed to death, but about those that lie on the ground without injuries. Possible reason for this behavior of birds Explains Olga Volcit: “When the birds eat a lot of cold berries in the cold, they have a lot of metabolism - when the stomach is filled with cold, they fall into numbness and fall into the snow. And then the berries are warming up inside them, digested, and they "come to life". Probably, this happened, that is, they are not drunk, but simply overcool. ” She also confirms that birds sometimes encounter cities with windows and windows, but explains this not with drunkenness: "The birds migrated to the city and ended up in unfamiliar areas." At the same time, zoologists usually do not take into account the temporarily numb birds, unlike the dead.

If we proceed from such an explanation of the reasons for the fall of waxwives, it will become clear that if they need any help, then certainly not a premises in the “sobering”. If the bird crashed into an obstacle and received a severe injury, being in a “sobering -up” without a veterinary inspection will not help her, at best it will protect against further injuries from cars and animals. If the bird fell into numbness, having eaten cold berries, then it does not need help - the body copes with such problems on its own. Moreover, it is not known how the bird body with cold berries inside will behave, being in a warm room.

Thus, photographs of those lying on the ground and supposedly drunk waxworms show either birds that crashed into some kind of barrier, or those who simply overeat with cold berries. Visually, it may not be easy to distinguish some from the others. However, it is wrong to consider the waxwives drunkards: the body of these birds is arranged in a special way, which allows them to process a significant amount of alcohol - five times more with a correction by weight than a person could process. And although science is known for individual cases of the detection of dead birds with the content of ethanol in the blood, they all died as a result of the fact that they crashed into glass or another transparent object.

The image on the cover: Flickr, Yuri Timofeyev