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There is no simple answer to your question. Birds do have olfactory nerves that vary tremendously in size and function. For most bird species, olfaction, or the sense of smell, plays little or no part in their ability to locate or assess the quality of food. Yet they all possess the capacity to smell. Because this is such a subjective sense and the birds aren't talking, scientists have had a difficult time trying to determine which species have a well-developed sense of smell and to what extent they use it.

The species most commonly accepted to have excellent olfaction and which relies on it to locate food is the turkey vulture. Studies have shown that turkey vultures, which have very large olfactory lobes and nasal openings, could readily locate carrion, no matter how well it was hidden, if they could detect the odor. On the other hand, the similar black vulture and California condor, both also strictly carrion eaters, rely almost completely on sight to locate their food. Frequently, these latter two vulture species will follow flocks of turkey vultures to a source of food they cannot see , but which their cousins have located by their superior sense of smell.

Some of the tube-nosed procellariidae, like storm-petrels and albatrosses, seem to also have well-developed olfaction. Leach's storm-petrels seem to be able to locate their forest nest burrows when they return to them under the cover of darkness by smelling the particular musky odor each particular nest emits. Other tubenoses seem to be able to smell the odor of oil, fat, meat or blood on the sea and will come in from miles around to feed on the slick created by such substances.

The kiwi of New Zealand is another well-known bird that seems to rely heavily on its sense of smell to locate food. Hindered by poor eyesight, the night-foraging kiwi apparently can smell the underground earthworms that make up its principal diet. Studies have shown that American robins may also be able to smell worms as they search for food. Some hawks and falcons, which naturally feed on fresh meat, have been shown to reject meat that is tainted and smells rotten.

It all seems to be another case of evolutionary necessity:"Use it or lose it!" Species that need to locate food or nest sites by smell have retained and developed the ability to do so, while the olfactory sense has diminished or disappeared entirely for species that gain no benefit from a sense of smell.

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