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Bird
Identification - Bird Beaks
We have our body and our legs/feet. Let's look at beaks/bills.
Bird
beaks can be very revealing about what the bird eats - and
that can give you clues to where the bird lives. There are
several different beak types - from cracking beaks to shredding
beaks and many, many more.
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The
first beaks that we will look at are waterfowl
beaks. We typically call these birds "strainers"
because they take in both food and water when feeding, straining
the water out the sides of their bill to separate it from
the food (very messy eaters).
The
lower mandibles are generally flat, allowing the water to
strain out of the sides. Geese
bills are shorter and more rounded, adapted
for both green plants and seeds. |
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| Duck,
Loon, Merganser and Cormorant bills are longer,
as they feed primarily in the water. These birds live in shallow
water, where plant roots, seeds and invertebrates
are plentiful. |
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| Wading
birds also inhabit the shallow waters. These
birds are generally tall, with long legs, necks, and bills. |
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Egrets
and herons spend much of their life in the
water, using their long, pointy bills to spear small fish.
The long neck allows their bill to spear into the water while
standing on tall legs. Egrets and herons fly with their long
necks folded into their bodies. |
Cattle
egrets are the exception to the rule - their
smaller, chunkier bodies and shorter bills roam farm fields,
riding on cows and following tractors - spearing grasshoppers
and other small delicacies.
The
ibis bill
is downturned, long, and thin. While they share habitat
with the "spearing" egrets and herons, they do
not compete for food, because they are "probers".
Ibises walk around in the marshes, probing in the mud for
insects and plants. |
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Among
"strainers", "spearers" and "probers",
we also have our "shredders". Birds
of prey, or raptors, have bills adapted to
shred. The claw-like upper mandible turns sharply down past
the lower mandible, resembling their razor-sharp talons, also
used in shredding.
Using the bill shape to decipher what the
species eats is really easy with raptors. The bill is just
right for tearing into prey - such as fish, small mammals,
other birds and roadkill. Knowing what it eats, we can understand
where it lives.
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| Where
are many turkey vultures found? Around roadsides where roadkill
is found. Bald Eagles prefer fish over all other meat and
so, they are generally found around rivers and lakes. Large
birds like these can't live in dense forests - we know that
they must have open spaces, but they're able to fly high above
the trees and roost in the tall places. |
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| Let's
move to smaller species. To the left you see 3 different types
of bills - the conical quail
bill, the longer shrike bill and the long, downward-curved
cuckoo and thrasher bills.
The bobwhite has a short, familiar bill
which can crack open weed seeds and insect exoskeletons,
but isn't suitable for acorns, probing in the mud or shredding
prey.
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Seeing
the small bill, we can deduce that this bird feeds
on insects
and seeds - therefore, this bird will commonly live in any
overgrown brushy roadsides and fencerows where food is abundant.
Shrikes
are songbirds that live like birds of prey - their bills
are suitable for capturing large insects, rodents, small
birds and lizards. The upper mandible curves down, giving
them good shredding ability. These birds are generally called
"butcher-birds" because they impale their prey
on thorns and barbed wire.
In contrast,
the thrasher and cuckoo bills
are long and thin. Their bills are not suitable for crunching
hard seed shells or ripping into prey - instead these birds
feed on caterpillars and other softer-bodied insects. |
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Shorebirds have long, slender bills to reach
deep into the mud for invertebrates. The varying shapes and
lengths minimize competition between species and make it easier
for observers to distinguish between them.
Shorebirds are not always found on the shore.
Killdeer can
be found almost anywhere water is available - including
football fields.
Shorebirds
will eat surface insects and crustaceans or tweeze into the
mud to find them. The holes left by crystal diggers on the
salt flats are good places for shorebirds to find brine flies
living in the water left in the hole. |
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The bill difference makes a difference in feeding habits.
For instance, the plovers
run a few feet, stop and tweeze in the mud, then run again.
This behavior probably has a lot to do with their short
necks and short bills. The American
avocet, on the other hand, has a long neck
and a long beak, so it can often be seen in the water, probing
around, like an ibis.
These
are just some of the bird bill shapes that you will see
as you start bird identification. But being able to identify
types of birds, by their bill shape, will help you on your
way. Understanding feeding is just one step in observing
and understanding their behavior.
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Building
our Bird
So, let's continue to build our bird. We had the body, legs
and feet previously, now we need to decide on a beak. |
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Because
I decided to make my bird live in the marsh and I gave the
bird long legs.
I now
choose a long neck so that my bird can walk around and stretch
it's neck down to the water to feed.
If I
chose a shorter neck, my bird could kneel down to eat, but
it wouldn't be able to move around very easily while eating.
My bird
is large, so I expect that it will eat large-ish things.
Being in a marsh, the largest things I can think of are
fish.
I gave
my bird a long, spear-like bill so that it could catch those
fish. With the long neck, the bird can quickly move it's
head into the water where the fish are swimming.
This
beak can also cut into wet plant roots, but it's not sensitive
and thin enough to tweeze into holes very well. |
| You
see that my bird has a curved neck. I could have gone either
way. View the two birds below. The sandhill crane looks a
lot like my bird, but its neck is straight. The great blue
heron looks like a more polished version of my bird and indeed,
that's exactly what I was making. |
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Let's
move on to color.
Keep
building our bird........ |
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Learn
more about bird beaks. |
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