If you start hanging out with birdwatchers, it is inevitable the day will come when one of them bends down to poke around in the grass, comes up with a grey, lumpy thing and declares it to be “a rather nice owl pellet”. The first reaction of most people is...
What are the most common bird species in North America during the winter? Well, there are a lot of people working to figure that out. The Great Backyard Bird Count is a program run jointly by the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology (CLO, which is part of Cornell...
All living organisms on Earth are organized into a hierarchical classification system which permits scientists to keep track of which animals are which and to give them each an official name. The methods used to accomplish this immense classification task are known as...
Birds are an incredibly diverse animal group. This is reflected in the large differences between some of the species with regards to their plumage, as you can see in this short list of facts about bird feathers. Greatest number of feathers: Whistling Swan, at 25,216....
Birdwatchers are fortunate when it comes to the naming of birds. While every living species on earth has a unique scientific name, most of them have no associated common name. Which means that if you want to discuss some obscure fish or an insect, chances are you will...
While scientists have worked hard over the last three centuries to describe and classify living organisms such that each distinct species would be known by a unique name, there are many species which have more than one (and in some cases, several) common names. This...
There are eighteen species of owls in North America. Some species are resident and do not migrate (e.g., the Great Horned Owl) while others migrate long distances (e.g., the Burrowing Owl nests in southern Canada and winters in Mexico). Vision The eyes of owls are 10X...
One of the most fundamental questions about birds is, “How many birds are there?” But that question is not as simple to answer as it seems. For one thing, it lacks the precision necessary to tackle what is, and has been for over a hundred years, the...
It’s a simple enough question: “How many birds are there on Earth?” Not how many different species, but how many different individual birds? Despite the simplicity of this question, arriving at an answer is incredibly difficult. For one thing, birds...
Although it may seem that this question has an obvious answer, birds share many seemingly unique traits with other animals. So, it there one or more traits which are unique only to birds? Read on to find out just what those traits may be. Is it their pretty colors?...
It’s safe to say that birds are pretty unique animals. But what exactly is it that makes them unique, aside from the obvious traits like the ability to fly? As it turns out, there are a number of traits that are possessed only by birds, or more common traits...
