My Science School

The Kakapo is the only parrot species in the world that cannot fly. Endemic to New-Zealand, it has bright yellow-green plumage with a prominent facial disc of soft feathers. Weighing between 4 and 9 pounds, it is the world’s heaviest parrot. It has a strong, sweet smell which enables its predators to easily locate it.

Breeding slower than any other bird, kakapos mate once every four to five years. They are also the only flightless bird to have a lek breeding system in which the males openly compete for the females’ attention. Males battle one another in an array of wings, beaks, claws and loud screeches. Calls out to the female can also be heard at night echoing throughout the ferned forest. 

These low grunts or "booming" calls last 6–8 hours every night for more than four months. Females choose their mate and lay 1–4 eggs over the span of a few days. After thirty days the eggs hatch and chicks become independent around 10 to 12 weeks of age.

Picture Credit : Google

Among the tiniest of birds, hummingbirds are endemic to the Americas. There are over 300 species of hummingbirds, with the highest numbers in South America. Jewel-like in appearance, they flap their wings with incredible speed. In fact, they get their name from the hum their wings generate while flapping. They not just fly sideways and backwards, but are the only birds that can sustain hovering for at least 30 seconds. Come, let’s find out more about this interesting bird.

With a heart rate of at least 500 beats a minute, the unimaginably fast beating of the wings, and sustained hovering, it should be no surprise that hummingbirds have the “highest energy expenditure of any warm-blooded animal”. Which means whatever energy they gain by feeding is spent quickly, and they require re-fuelling constantly. Because of this, they must consume food – invariably nectar – that’s more than their body weight every day. But unlike humans who need several hours for their food to energise them, a study (during which the birds were fed cane nectar) showed that hummingbirds required much less time. The study “showed that within 20 minutes of feeding, the hummingbirds were supporting more than 90 percent of their hovering needs with the cane” nectar. Also, though the fast-beating wings expend energy, these very wings also help the birds hover while feeding. Studies have shown that unlike other birds, hummingbirds “generate lift on both the downstroke and the upstroke of their wings”, like bees and flies. Most other birds generate lift only on downstrokes.

  The hummingbird’s tongue is interesting too. Because of how quickly they gulp nectar, it was imagined that their tongue worked like straws. However, it turned out that the tongue is forked. High-speed films captured the working of a hummingbird tongue – “Each tube of the tongue unfurls to snatch the nectar in a hundredth of a second. Then the birds pump the liquid into their gullets by squeezing their beaks.”

Did you know?

According to the Guinness World Records, the smallest bird is the bee hummingbird of Cuba. Males measure 57 mm in total length, half of which is taken up by the bill and tail, and weigh 1.6 g. Females re slightly larger. This is believed to be the lowest weight limit for any warm-blooded animal.

Picture Credit : Google

BIRDS

The only animals with feathers, birds are found in all parts of the world. Many have superb flying skills, with strong chest muscles to power their flapping wings. There is a dazzling diversity of species, from soaring albatrosses and flamboyant peacocks to flightless rheas and tiny hummingbirds.

• ZEBRA FINCH Like many birds, the zebra finch of Australia lives in large flocks that fly and feed together for safety. Its stout bill is adapted for splitting the tough skins of grass seeds to get at their nourishing kernels.
• TAWNY EAGLE Eagles are powerful hunters. They target their prey while soaring high overhead, and then swoop down to seize it in their talons. The tawny eagle is also notorious for stealing the victims of other birds of prey.
• RHEA As tall as 1.5 m (5 ft), these large flightless birds roam the grassland of South America. They eat plants, nuts, seeds, and fruits, as well as insects and small animals, such as lizards.
• ALBATROSS The long, narrow wings of an albatross enable it to soar for hours on oceanic winds without moving a muscle. It feeds on marine animals, which it snatches from the ocean with its bill.
• SNOWY OWL Most owls hunt by night, but the snowy owl is active during the almost continuous daylight of the Arctic summer. It uses its acute hearing to locate small animals such as lemmings feeding beneath the snow.
• TOUCAN The enormous bill of the toco toucan is much lighter than it looks, because it is a hollow shell of lightweight horny material supported by criss-crossing internal struts. The toucan uses it for display as well as feeding.
• FLAMINGO Vast wading flocks of flamingos gather tiny animals and algae from warm lakes. Holding their extraordinary bills upside down in the shallows, they use their tongues to pump water through their sieve-like bill fringes to trap food.
• PEAFOWL The female peafowl, or peahen, looks drab and colourless compared to the dazzling male peacock, with his amazing courtship display of fanned tail feathers.
• WOODPECKER Woodpeckers use their powerful bills to carve out nesting holes in trees, and many also hack into soft timber to find insects. The green woodpecker catches ants with its extra-long tongue.

Picture Credit : Google

EGGS

All female birds lay eggs. The young grow inside the eggs, which are kept warm by their parents. To hatch, they must chip their way through the eggshell. Some chicks, such as ducklings, can run and walk around soon after hatching, but other baby birds hatch at a much earlier stage in their development when they are naked, blind, and almost helpless.

1. GREAT AUK This beautiful egg is one of the last relics of a big flightless seabird that once lived in the north Atlantic and hunted fish like a penguin. Each pair laid just one egg, and the last known pair was killed in 1844.
2. GOLDEN EAGLE A female golden eagle lays two eggs a few days apart. She keeps the first egg warm so it hatches earlier. This chick may be the only one to survive if food is hard to find.
3. KING PENGUIN King Penguins breed in huge colonies on windswept rocky islands around Antarctica. Each female lays one egg and both parents take turns keeping it warm by supporting it on their feet beneath their warm bellies.
4. OSTRICH The ostrich is the world’s largest bird, and it lays the biggest eggs. Each one can weigh anything up to 1.9 kg (4 lbs) — the same weight as 27 chicken’s eggs.
5. QUAIL The quail lays a huge clutch of up to 18 eggs in a nest on the ground. Like many eggs, they have camouflage markings that make them harder to see. The female starts keeping them warm only after she lays the last one. This means they start developing at the same time, so they all hatch at once. The chicks are active as soon as they hatch, just like ostriches.
6. SPARROWHAWK In the 1960s, sparrowhawks suffered from poisoning by pesticides used in farming. The poisons thinned their eggshells, so they broke when the birds tried to keep them warm. Most of these pesticides are now banned.
7. CUCKOO Cuckoos lay single eggs in the nests of other birds, and their colour varies to match the host bird’s eggs. When the cuckoo hatches, it heaves the other eggs out so it can eat all the food its foster parents collect.
8. KIWI A kiwi is 20 times smaller than an emu, yet its eggs are almost the same size. This means that the egg is huge compared to the kiwi that lays it, at up to a quarter of her weight. That’s like a human mother giving birth to a three-year-old child.
9. COMMON SANDPIPER Sandpipers are shorebirds that lay their eggs in shallow scrapes on the ground near the water. Their pointed shape allows them to be pushed together in a tight clutch to take up less space. The eggs are camouflaged by speckled patterns, and can be hard to see — but if you do find any birds’ eggs, remember it is illegal to collect or disturb them.
10. HUMMINGBIRD Hummingbirds lay the smallest of all birds’ eggs. The bee hummingbird’s egg is the size of a pea, because the bird itself is no bigger than a large moth. This ruby-throated hummingbird’s egg is bigger, but still tiny compared to the ostrich egg.
11. CHICKEN The egg that everybody recognizes is laid by the domestic chicken. We eat 1.1 trillion of these eggs every year.

Picture Credit : Google