Evolutionary biologists disagree. Adaptations are the result of numerous evolutionary coincidences, but not all evolutionary coincidences are adaptive. Not only are most survivable mutations neutral, but there are traits that are truly "coincidental" in that they come along for the ride, like the color of our blood being red being due to chemistry, not adaptation. (Our visual system that treats red as an alarm, OTOH, is adaptive.)

See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_drift

Technically, every adaptation is evolutionary history, but not every evolutionary historical pattern is an adaptation.

The distinction is very sharp and clear: adaptation is not a mere property discovered in the organism, but an exciting post-hoc human classification of evolutionary history. It's powered by the grand human psyche doing what it does best: projecting competitive, status-oriented social psychology onto non-human biological processes.

If you ever wondered "how dare biology fail to conform to a clear narrative easily processed by the human mind?", adaptation fixes exactly that.

Either way, the bird ends up with the same strange bargain: unobstructed vision paid for by an inefficient metabolic workaround