"...While mammals will avoid food containing as little as 100-1000 parts per million (ppm) of capsaicin, birds will readily consume up to at least 20,000 ppm (mind, we're talking food that's 2% pure capsaicin here). The difference seems to be that bird receptor cells are largely insensitive to capsaicin."
"The reason chilies incorporate capsaicin in their fruits (and red/green peppers of course are fruits in a botanical sense, not vegetables) seems to be to ensure that their seeds are dispersed properly. When small birds consume the fruits of wild peppers the seeds pass through the gut undigested and, due to the birds' flight range, are deposited in distant places where they can grow with less competition. If the fruits were consumed by larger mammals the seeds would either be digested, or deposited much closer to the parent plant."
Not only that, but passing through the bird's gut actually helps the seeds germinate better:
"... Researchers conducted feeding trials with captive birds to obtain gut-passed seeds. The seeds then underwent planting trials to determine how they performed compared to seeds that hadn't passed through birds."
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