When you think of a species, most often a single visage of a species comes to mind. I say bald eagle for example, and the image of a large bird with a dark brown body, white head and tail, orange beak and piercing yellow eyes. But birds don’t generally look exactly the same as they…
Birds of prey have excellent vision, they need it to be able to see prey from perched in a tree or soaring high above the ground. Though, something can get in the way of their vision, making it difficult to clearly see, especially when out in the open, and that is the sun. Many times…
If you look at the bills of some duck species, you may see it lined with fine comb-like structures. These little projections are called lamellae and are made of keratin. These slightly flexible structures are used to filter and strain food from mud or water. These structures will be seen mostly in dabbling ducks along…
The tomial tooth, or the mandibular tomia, is not really a tooth at all, but a projection that can be seen in the outer edge on beaks of falcons, kites, and shrikes. This “tooth” also corresponds with a divot on the lower bill, called the mandibular notch; these together act like a pair of scissors…
In the bird world, if you say ear tufts, you would probably instantly think of the ear tufts on owls. This feature is found on many owl species, about 50 of the 200 plus owl species have ear tufts, seemingly mostly occurring in nocturnal, forest dwelling species. But there are many other species that possess…
As of now there are over 10000 recognised species of birds, broken down into 249 different families, with some families containing just one species like the kagu in the dromadidae family and all the way up to Tyrannidae, the tyrant flycatchers which can boast of having more than 400 species including the eastern phoebe, great…