Where do most of the birds on Earth live?
Scientists think that there are about 9,500 species of birds in the world.
Birds are classified into 23 orders, such as passerines (song birds), accipters (eagles and hawks, for example), galliformes (game birds), and strigiformes (owls) etc.
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How does an Australian bird eat a poisonous Cane Toad?
In Australia, the poisonous Cane Toad (Bufo marinus) is not native to the country. It is an introduced, invasive pest living in tropical northern Australia that has rapidly spread due to the lack of predators. Animals that eat the warty amphibian die from the toxic secretions from large glands on the Cane Toad’s shoulder. The cardiac toxins can give all predators, such as snakes, goanna lizards, and even freshwater crocodiles, a deadly heart attack.
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Which animals are bald or naked?
Some mammals and birds are born with fur, hair, or feathers – these babies or young are called precocial because they already have some features like their parents and can usually move independently soon after birth.
There are also many mammals and birds that are born pink and without fur, hair, or feathers. They are called altricial because they are helpless, usually blind, and hairless or featherless. They grow their outer covering as they mature and age.
Some mammals, and humans, are born naked and grow hair on some parts of their body. Some animals appear to be naked but, if you look closely, they have hair, like the rhinoceros, hippopotamus, and elephant, which have sparse hair or tufts (small clumps) of hair on their ears or tail. Other animals, like reptiles and fish have scales or tough skin.
Some animals have the word bald in their name, but they are not.
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The Madagascar Ibis (Lophotibis cristata) is a bird in the Threskiomithidae family of ibises. It is also known as the Madagascar Crested Ibis, the White-Winged Ibis, and the Crested Wood Ibis.
The Madagascar Ibis is brown with white wings, a crest of green or glossy, iridescent blue and white feathers on the back of its neck. Its head is black. Its chin, neck, throat, and underparts, are dark brown. It has a bare red patch (featherless) around its eyes. It has a yellow beak and red legs. It has brown eyes.
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The Northern Bald Ibis (Geronticus eremita) is a non-wading bird in the Threskiornithidae family of wading birds. Most ibises are wetland wading birds, living near water sources, but the Northern Bald Ibis is not a wetland wading bird.
It lives and breeds in colonies and flocks of up to 100 individuals. It makes a stick nest high on a cliff ledge to avoid predators.
The female lays 2-3 eggs. The chicks hatch after about 25 days and gain their feathers within 40-50 days.
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Why does the Avocet have an upturned, or upcurved, beak?
The Pied Avocet (Recurvirostra avosetta) is a small bird in the Recurvirostridae family of waders. It has long legs to wade in water. It lives in wetlands, such as marshes, swamps, lakes, estuaries, and rivers.
The Avocet has a long, thin, upcurved black beak. It measures about 8 centimetres (3 inches) long. Many wetlands birds, such as Ibis and Curlew, have a long, thin downturned beak, but the Avocet has an upturned beak.
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The Scarlet Ibis (Eudocimus ruber) is a large wetlands bird in the Threskiomithidae family of ibises. It is a wader and a shore or coastal bird. It is the only red coastal bird in the world.
The Scarlet Ibis is scarlet red. Its wingtips often have black or dark blue markings. It has a long downward-curved red beak, which is darker towards the tip. Its feet are red. Its neck and legs are long, and they are out-stretched when they fly.
The Northern Bald Ibis (Geronticus eremita) is also called the Waldrapp Ibis. It is a non-wading bird.
The Northern Bald Ibis has glossy black feathers with an iridescent green and purple sheen. It has a red bald face and head, with a ruff of feathers on its neck. Its red beak is long and downward-curved. It has amber (orange-brown) eyes and pink legs.
The Glossy Ibis (Plegadis falcinellus) is a common medium-sized wetland wading bird from Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and the Americas.
The Glossy Ibis is reddish-brown with iridescent dark-green wings. It has a brown beak and red-brown legs.
The African Sacred Ibis (Threskiornis aethiopicus aethiopicus) is a common African water bird.
The African Sacred Ibis is mainly white. It has a wrinkled black featherless head and neck, that has a large decurved beak (curving downward). Its tail feathers are iridescent blue-black. Its eyes are brown with a dark red eye-ring when it is breeding, which is also called an orbital ring. Its legs and feet are black.
How does a parent bird feed its young chicks?
Newly-hatched altricial chicks are born featherless, blind, and helpless.
Chicks open their eyes after about four days. They take time to gain all of their feathers. Initially, the down feathers make young chicks look fluffy. They sit close to their parents to keep warm and safe.
During this time, young chicks stay in the nest. Adult birds look after and feed their young – sometimes, just the mother, sometimes just the father, and other times both the mother and father look after their chicks.
The Hadada Ibis (Bostrychia hagedash) is a medium-sized, common African wading bird, found in the grasslands, rainforests, and urban areas of Sudan, Ethiopia, Senegal, Uganda, Tanzania, Gabon, Zaire, Cameroon, Gambia, Kenya, Somalia and South Africa.
The Hadada Ibis has brown and iridescent green feathers, a long black downward-curved beak with a red stripe on it upper mandible (top beak), and long black legs. It is related to the Spoonbill.
What birds are cranes related to?
Cranes are related to herons, storks, spoonbills, flamingos, marabou, jabiru, bitterns, egrets, brolgas, and ibises.
Photographer: Martina Nicolls
Martina Nicolls: SIMILAR BUT DIFFERENT IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM