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Bird Adaptations

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The Best Bits of Birds

Wings, beaks and feet are a birds special tools. You can tell where a bird lives and how it gets food by these special adaptations.

All photos by Gilbert Henry

The Bird Connection

I am constantly watching, photographing & catching birds on video. I have so much to share with others that it can't possibly be contained in one page. I've selected the following "featured lens" as a main lens. From there you can find all the lenses.
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Children's stories to read aloud.

Children love nature! Here are some excellent books to help them discover the world of birds.
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Wings

Birds wings are flat on the bottom and curved on the top. As the wing moves through air the air on top has a longer way to go than the air moving over the bottom. This makes low pressure over the top and higher pressure over the bottom. The wind pulls the wing up from the top and pushes it up from the bottom. It creates "lift". Airplane wings work the same way.

The shape of the birds wings can tell you a lot about how it lives and hunts.

** Long wings that end in a point. **

This wing shape is for gliding. It's long and narrow. The air at wing tips and along the back side of the wing create little swirls of wind. This causes drag and slows the bird down. With this pointed tip a bird can glide and make small changes. Gulls and sea birds have this shape. Terns have this shape as well. This shape helps the bird to hover, turn and dive for food in the water.

The Dive of the Least Tern

The Least Tern hovers over water until it spots a fish. Then it's dive is spectacular and fast for such a small bird.

** Wings that are broad, long and end in little "fingers" **

This wing shape is broad and long and the ends have little "fingers" of feathers. These little "fingers" help the bird make small changes while gliding. Birds with this shape can stay high in the air for a long time while using the up drafts caused by hot air rising. These birds soar with little or no flapping while they look for food. Vultures have this wing shape.

Osprey Wings

Osprey's have this wing shape as well. Once you see an Osprey flying you'll always recognize one. The wings taper to a rounded tip.

** Medium long and pointed with a bend backwards **

These wings are medium length. They are a bit pointed and tend to point backwards. These wings are a bit slow to take off the ground but are quicker in the air and are good for long distance flying. Ducks have this wing shape.

Ducks and Herons have this wing shape.

You can always tell a duck when it's flying. They flap their wings very fast. The shape isn't very good for soaring but they can go a long distance with it and it's great for maneuverablity. Unfortuantly, it's also very difficult to catch a photograph of a duck in the air.

Heron's are very slow to take off the ground but are magnificent to watch as they fly. Yes, their wings are not as short as compared to their body as duck wings are but there are some variations on the main basic wing shapes.

** Short and wide wings **

These wings are short and wide. They are great for grabbing air quickly for lift off but not too good for long distance flying. Pheasants have this shape. They can explode off the ground but they're not the greatest flyers. Ibis also have this wing shape.

Ibis wing shape

An ibis can burst off the ground in a flash. They do alright flying but often lock their wings and glide. These birds fly in flocks.

Wings are shaped by the birds activities.

Now that you know the basic shapes of wings you can figure out what a bird does by its wing. We can always tell an Osprey in flight even if it's so high we can't see the colors of the bird. We can tell by it's wing shape. An Ospreys wing shape has little fingers like #2. It's very much like the Vulture so the Osprey can soar well. But on the other hand the wing is also very long like the gulls in # 1, so the Osprey can also glide over water like the gull. Next, the hawk has the same basic shape with fingers as the vulture does but it's wing is shorter. This makes for the quicker direction changes a hawk needs for hunting but the hawk can still soar for long times in the air.

By the way, could you imagine a bird with big wings like the vulture or Albatross trying to fly through a forest? It would thunk it's wings on all the branches. A pheasant has short wide wings but it spends most of it's time on the ground and uses it's wings to get away quickly. Owls have short wings that can grab air quickly. It also has fingers that help it make direction changes.

The wonderful usefullness of wings!

Left If you're as light as a feather and you did this what do you think the effect would be? It looks very much like a parachute!

Right This crow is controlling his direction in the air as he puts the brakes on with his tail.

Beaks and Food

A birds beak is it's universal tool. Birds use their beaks for eating, defense, feeding young, gathering nesting materials, building nests, preening, scratching, courting and attacking. The shape and size of a birds beak is specific for the type of food it eats. A beak is actually is a part of its skull that is covered with a tough layer of skin.

Filtering

Ducks have flat beaks with small tooth-like edges to filter plant food from mud and water.

Probing

Ibis, Lipkins, and Black-necked Stilts have probing beaks to poke around in plants and grass to find food.

Catching Insects

Blackbirds like the Crow and song birds have beaks to catch insects.

Cracking Seeds

Some song birds such as the Cardinal have beaks designed for seeds.

Tearing Meat

Birds of prey such as the Osprey have sharp hooked beaks to tear meat.

Mixed

Birds with beaks that are combinations of the above eat a vairety of food. The Black-crowned Night Heron and Tri-colored Herons here eat mainly fish but will also eat amphibians, crustaceans, leeches, worms and insects. The Gallinule, which has a shorter beak that the herons, will also eat fruit and plants as well as worms, leeches, eggs and insects.

Feet

Most birds have three forward toes and a 4th one facing backwards.

Grasping: Large curved claws to catch prey.

Scratching: Long nail like toes to scratch in the dirt.

Swimming: Webbed toes to use like paddles for swimming.

Perching: The 4th backward toe is long to reach around branches.

Running: Many fast running birds don't have a backward facing toe and only have 3 forward toes.

Climbing: Many birds who climb the sides of trees have two forward facing toes and two backward facing toes.

Webbed

Birds with webbed feet are swimmers.

Lobed

Semi-aquatic Birds like the coot have lobed feet that helps them walk on top of plants in the marsh. They are also good for walking on dry land.

Long and Narrow

These feet belong to the heron with long legs and long toes. They can walk on mucky marsh bottoms.

Short and Narrow

The Ibis has shorter toes and walks on land to look for food.

Perching

Anyone who's had a pet bird knows these feet. The feet shown here are designed for grabing branches and belong to the parrot.

The beauty of flight

If you have never seen a Heron fly you are missing out on one of the most beautiful scenes in life. If you've seen it on a T.V. documentary it's beautiful. In life it's breathtaking.

Photo by Gilbert Henry

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