Bird facts for kids: 11 birds to research
Birds are the living descendants of feathered dinosaurs, and the roughly 11,000 species share the same toolkit: feathers, a beak with no teeth, hollow bones and a fast metabolism. Flight makes some of them extreme performers. The peregrine falcon dives at more than 300 km/h, the fastest speed of any animal; the bar-tailed godwit flies 11,000 kilometres nonstop across the Pacific; and hummingbirds hover on wings beating up to 80 times a second and are the only birds that can fly backwards. Not all birds fly: penguins have turned their wings into flippers, and the emperor penguin dives deeper than 500 metres and breeds through the Antarctic winter. Eagles and owls see and hear far better than we do, parrots can learn hundreds of words, and toucans use their huge bills to shed heat. Many birds face habitat loss, but there are recoveries too — the bald eagle went from about 400 pairs to more than 70,000 after DDT was banned.
Research pages
Eagle
Eagles are large birds of prey found on every continent except Antarctica, from the golden eagle of open mountain country to the harpy eagle of South American rainforest canopies. Their…
Bald Eagle
The bald eagle is the national bird of the United States, found from Alaska and Canada to Mexico near coasts, rivers and large lakes where it can take fish. Pairs…
Peregrine Falcon
The peregrine falcon is the fastest animal on Earth, folding its wings into a hunting dive that has been clocked at over 300 km/h. It nests on cliffs on every…
Penguin
Penguins are flightless seabirds of the Southern Hemisphere, and only the Galápagos penguin lives as far north as the equator. Their wings have become stiff flippers, and emperor penguins dive…
Owl
Owls are mostly nocturnal birds of prey, and the roughly 250 species occupy forests, deserts, grasslands and tundra on every continent except Antarctica. Comb-like fringes on their flight feathers muffle…
Hummingbird
Hummingbirds are found only in the Americas, where more than 360 species range from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, with the greatest variety in the Andes. They are the only…
Parrot
Parrots are found across the tropics and subtropics, with the greatest diversity in Australasia and South America, and the nearly 400 species include macaws, cockatoos, lorikeets and the flightless kākāpō…
Flamingo
Flamingos wade in shallow salt lakes and lagoons across Africa, southern Europe, South Asia and the Americas, often in colonies of thousands and, at East Africa's soda lakes, more than…
Emperor Penguin
Standing over a metre tall, the emperor penguin is the largest penguin and the only animal that breeds through the Antarctic winter, when males incubate a single egg on their…
Snowy Owl
The snowy owl breeds on the open Arctic tundra of North America, Europe and Asia, where its white plumage — nearly pure in older males, barred with black in females…
Toucan
Toucans are birds of the forests of Central and South America, and the toco toucan's orange bill, nearly a third of its body length, is the largest of any bird…