Are birds afraid of heights?

For those scientifically-inclined and critical minds, NO. Obviously those flightless birds are excluded to begin with. So think parrots, sparrows, and your usual birds that has the ability to shit on your head.

Boss not included.

Birds shouldn't be afraid of heights. It is as second nature to them as water is to fish. The air is their playground. High or low, they simply cannot be imagined to have fallen to their death; just as you can't drown the fish.

But I thought I had just seen a tinge of fear in my pet parrot, as its devilishly curious owner brought the unwitting furball up the stairs and set it alone on the railings looking 5m down to a silly grin and constant encouragement for it to make the jump.

5m? That's not too much of a height until we put things into perspective. The little furball is less than 10cm in height and 5m is 50 times its bodily height. Consider yourself at the top of a 28th storey building waiting to make the jump and tell me convincingly that death never crossed your mind.

For those in the know, yes, my bird had fallen off 11 stories from my window, by its own ingenuity and over-enthusiasm. But the conditions were different. There are space constrains. Try landing a Boeing 747 within a 50m runway.

Before the SPCAs decided to ask Google for my IP address, my pet parrot just had breakfast with me on my shoulder.

It jumped. And made a pompous landing on my dad's shoulder with lots of fowl language.

It is not the destination that frightens us, but the journey.