Entries Tagged 'birds' ↓

Via Nick Lawes’ Flickr photostream.

These Skimmers are an interesting kind of bird. They’re notable for being the only group of birds with a lower mandible that is longer than their upper one. To hunt for fish, they fly just above the water, and open their beaks to skim their lower mandible through the sea. If it hits a fish, the beak snaps shut, it’s got a meal.

Via Gerry’s Flickr photostream.

Thanks Kimberly!

I got you a pheasant!

The satyr tragopan is a pheasant that lives in the eastern Himalayans. This brilliant plumage is a characteristic of males of the species. Like a number of other pheasants, the plumage of the females is a bit more modest. (I think the females are very pretty though! Brown is an under-appreciated color!)

Via Kuribo’s Flickr photostream.

From the Flickr photo description:

he is such a sweet baby, but he got picked on by some other birds and caused some damage to his feather folicles so [I] adopted him , he still sings pretty , I call him my vulture canary. 

It’s really nice that somebody would choose to care for a bird that’s been hurt this way!

Via Sharon Taylor’s Flickr photostream.

Via Andrew Miller’s Flickr photostream.

The contrast between the upper and lower beak is great! I’m not sure that a cartoon could really improve on how funny and charming it looks.

Photo via Michael Dawes’ Flickr Photostream!

This is kind of impressive!

This NPR story notes how old Pierre is for a penguin:

In the wild, penguins live about 15 years; in captivity, they live to about 20. Pierre turned 25 in February.

He’s also looking a lot healthier in the video than he did in the story’s photograph:

Thanks Violet Dragon!

My grandmother’s favorite animal is the owl! Maybe this will make up for posting bats.

Photo via Nick Lawes’ Flickr Photostream!

This roseate spoonbill’s bill looks a little more like a flathead screwdriver than a spoon!

I wanted to learn what purpose the spoonbill’s bill has. Wikipedia wasn’t of any use, but this article seemed to hold the answer.

In uncommonly lyrical prose, [Robert Porter] Allen described how the bill sweeps “from side to side in wide semicircles, the mandibles slightly parted, the tips digging gingerly into the surface film of the soft bottom, beneath waters that are nearly always opaque. Delicate, sensitive to the small wrigglings and the darting, skittish movements of fish or prawn a quarter of an inch in length or of insects of even lesser dimensions, this keen, responsive instrument must serve as both eyes and hands.” He was mostly right.

But engineer Daniel Wiehs and biologist Gadi Katzir, working in the early 1990s with a captive Eurasian spoonbill and a contraption that could have been invented by Rube Goldberg, discovered there is more to the spoonbill´s rhythmic bill-sweeping. The flattened bill, they found, creates mini-whirlpools that suck submerged prey items into the water column.

There are so many wonderfully clever things in nature. I don’t know what else to say than that!

Photo via Rob Parkin’s Flickr Photostream!
Link to the full article.