perchers

The highest class of birds is the "perchers," and many friends of yours belong to this.

Stories of California Ella M. Sexton

State police and conservation officers arrived in cars and helicopters, gave the scene a once-over, asked the perchers to come down, but left, as in previous cases, without making any arrests.

Interstate 69 Matt Dellinger 2010

Out of forty perchers eleven are missing — yellow oriole, yellow fig-bird (SPHECOTHERES), black-backed magpie, black-headed diamond-bird, helmeted friar-bird, silver-eye, and the blue, pied, shining, white-eared and spectacled flycatchers.

Last Leaves from Dunk Island 2003

Trumpets and perchers blared, and the soldiers gave up their meager meals to stand to arms.

Nemesis Thompson, Paul B. 2000

There are two families, however, of perchers, those that call and the song-birds.

Stories of California Ella M. Sexton

The sparrows are perchers, grain-eaters, free-fliers, and singers; and they, of all birds, are the friends and neighbors of man.

Roof and Meadow Dallas Lore Sharp 1899

The same is true of the raptorial birds, or birds of prey, which are strong perchers and depend largely for their food supply on clutching their victims while on the wing.

Our Bird Comrades 1896

Here is still another conundrum for the bird student: Why do the four-toed woodpeckers have two hind digits, despite the fact that they always clamber upward when they take their promenades on the boles and branches of the trees, whereas the agile little nuthatch, which glides upward or downward, as the impulse moves him, has only one rear toe and three in front, like the true perchers?

Our Bird Comrades 1896

All birds by no means possess this particular muscle, but all the perchers have some muscular arrangement in the legs and toes that practically answers the same purpose.

Our Bird Comrades 1896

In order that a bird may use his feet with the greatest dexterity in perching and flitting, his digits should be as free and movable as possible; and so we find that the toes of the perchers are usually cleft to the base, are long and slender, easily opened and closed, and possess the power to grasp an object firmly.

Our Bird Comrades 1896