Do birds emit infra-red radiation? I'm an electronics engineering student and I am going to use a sensor that detects infra-red emitted by birds that invade rice paddies. Do birds emit infra-red radiation?

**Short answer**
Birds emit infrared.

**Background**
Objects with a temperature higher than the background emit detectable infrared (IR). Endothermic (warmblooded) animals keep their body temperatures at around 37oC and given the relatively cool temperatures at the earth's surface, endotherms generally emit more IR than the background. Endothermic animals include the mammals and birds, but also some fish.

![!\[!\[hiummingbird IR](
Infrared image of a hummingbird. Source: Nature Conservancy.

Note that dinosaurs were probably not ectothermic (coldblooded), but they are believed to have been _mesotheroms_ , that is somewhere in-between ecto- and endothermic (Grady _et al_., 2014).

Also note your IR recordings will benefit from lower temperatures and reduced light-pollution from the sun, hence your recordings will be better at night than during daytime.

**Reference**
**-** Grady _et al_., _Science_ (2014); **344** (6189): 1268-72