My Science School

          The national bird of Jordan, the Sinai rose finch is a long-tailed, small-billed finch. The males have a pink face and breast with a whitish forehead and crown.

          These birds are found in sandstone cliffs and rocky slopes. Oddly distributed, their presence is recorded on the Middle East, in the Hindu Kush in Afghanistan and further east in central China.

          The diet of a Sinai rose finch primarily consists of seeds of shrubs and herbs such as wormwood. It needs a lot of water, as the bird is known to drink as many as 30 times during hot weather. Not very fond of the heat, it prefers to stay under the shade when the sun blazes in the sky.

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          The Ross’s gull gets its name from Sir James Clark Ross, the 19the century British explorer who spotted the bird in one of his expeditions to the Arctic.

          The Ross’s gull is a rare species of gull, which is hard to find anywhere beyond the remote sub-tundra of Russia, Canada and, certainly, the ice of the Arctic seas. The Russian ornithologist, Sergei Aleksandrovich Buturlin, discovered the breeding grounds of these birds for the first time in 1905 near the village of Pokhodsk in North-Eastern Yakutia, while visiting the area as a judge.

          The bird migrates only for short distances to the south in autumn. It does not have a specific diet and eats any suitable small prey such as small fish and crustaceans.

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        There are some skilled dancers among birds. The peacock is a graceful dancer we all know, and so is the great argus.

        The great argus display its fan of feathers during its mating dance. The male prepares the dancing ground on the forest floor by clearing an open spot.

        He lets out loud calls to attract the female and dances before her by spreading his feather to make two huge fans. Like the peacock, the great argus too has hundreds of eyes on its feathers.

        It is a shy, jungle bird that is difficult to spot. The bird is endowed with some enchanting physical features.

        It is a brown-plumaged pheasant with a blue head and neck, rufous red upper breast, black hair-like feathers on the crown and nape, and red legs.

        The males of the species are considered to be the largest in the pheasant family with a length of 160 to 200 centimetres. The tail alone will measure up to 143 centimetres.

        The bird is native to the jungle of Borneo, Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula in Southeast Asia.

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          The red-vented bulbul is the most common variety of bulbul. The feathers are dark brown that fades to paler shades towards the end which gives a scale-like appearance to the breast and back.

          The back is white and is normally concealed under the wings, noticed while flying. The vent, the region under the tail is red which gives it its name.

          These birds are mostly found in gardens and light scrub jungles. Their major diet is berries. They also eat moths and caterpillars.

          When winged termites come out from underground holes after the first rain, red-vented bulbuls will be the first to reach the spot. Either they will catch the insects as they exit the ground, or they will spring up with them and catch them in air. These are very noisy birds. They are found in pairs, or in small groups.

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        From time to time nature needs some clean up. Vultures are known as nature’s scavengers as they play a vital role in clearing up dead animals.

        The Indian vulture is listed as ‘critically endangered’ on the IUNC Red List since 2002. The major reason for the decline in their numbers is poisoning. Indian vultures are mainly carrion eaters, feeding on dead animals. Through the dead animals, a deadly poison called diclofenac gets into their bodies. The Indian vultures build their nests using sticks and straws on a cliff or on ruined buildings. These birds often build their nests in colonies. Their breeding takes place on hilly crags in central and peninsular India.

        The Indian vulture is from India, Pakistan and Nepal. It is medium sized, usually 80 to 103 centimetres in length with a wingspan of 1.96 to 2.38 metres.

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          The crab plover is a shorebird. The crab plover spends time looking for food during night. As the name suggests, it loves eating crabs. Their bill is unique among shore birds and is suitable for eating crabs and other crustaceans.

          It has a strong black bill which it uses to catch aquatic animals. It is a colonial breeder, which means it nests in colonies as large as 1500 pairs! It makes a tunnel and lays its eggs in it.

          A sociable bird, it feeds in flocks at times. The bird’s physical appearance is unique; it has a black-and-white plumage, and is often spotted in an upright posture. The bird has partially webbed toes too. They are commonly found around the Indian Ocean where they prefer to stay close to the shore.

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          The little forktail bird is black and white in colour and is found in the Tian Shan and Himalayan mountain ranges, southern China and Taiwan. They prefer to stay in subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests and subtropical or tropical moist montane forests. They can be spotted near mountain streams, waterfalls and small shaded forest puddles.

          Abundant in their natural habitat, these birds are classified as of ‘least concern’. They eat little insect larvae such as those of caddis flies and mayflies. They are quite fast eaters; in order to acquire enough food, they have to take between 80 and 124 pecks a minute while foraging!

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          One of the distinct features of the scissor-tailed flycatcher is its long forked tail, which is black on top and white beneath. The tails of the females are about 30 percent shorter than those of the males. The tail is in the shape of a pair of scissors.

          The scissor-tailed flycatcher is found in North and Central America. These birds are also known as the Texas bird-of-paradise and swallow-tailed flycatcher.

          They eat insects, particularly grasshoppers, crickets and beetles. A mature male may grow up to 38 centimetres in length. These birds characteristically build their nest in groups during spring and fall. Their nests are in the shape of cups. These birds prefer to stay on isolated trees or shrubs. Sometimes, the flycatchers are seen at artificial sites such as telephone poles near towns.

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          The northern carmine bee-eater does eat bees. However, bees are not their only food; they eat other flying insects too. This bird is just one out of a number of bee-eaters in the world, almost all of which are colourful.

          The northern carmine bee-eater is a spectacle in itself. It has an alluring plumage of red and green. They nest in cliffs, usually near river banks. They make long horizontal nesting tunnels using their bills to dig.

          Their tunnels are sometimes as deep as eight feet or more! These birds are social beings and stay together in large colonies.

          There are many animals and birds that appear strange. Their strangeness is probably due to their adaptive responses to various challenges they encountered in the long process of evolution. The roseate spoonbill is an odd bird with bright pink feathers, red eyes, a partly bald head, and giant spoon-shaped bill. It is the bill that gave it its name, ‘spoonbill’.

          The roseate spoonbill is commonly found across South America. The bird is 71 to 86 centimetres long with a wingspan of 120 to 133 centimetres. It weighs up to 1.8 kilograms. Its diet consists of crustaceans, aquatic insects, frogs, newts and very small fish ignored by larger waders. They are social beings and roost together in trees and shrubs with other large wading birds.

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          Swans are known for their beauty. Do you know that ballet dancers often are linked to a gracefully moving swan? Mute swans are very large water fowls. They are called ‘mute’ not because they are totally dumb. They do make noise; but they are far more silent than other swan species.

         The mute swans have heavy bodies, short legs and a long, slender neck. They are found in much of Eurasia and the far north of Africa. The bird was introduced by Man to North America, Australasia and southern Africa.

          Measuring between 125 and 170 centimetres in length, the mute swan is about the same size of a Trumpeter Swan and more than double the size of a Snow Goose.

         This beautiful bird has white plumage with an orange beak bordered with black.

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          Penguins are noted for their physical features and habitat. They are flightless birds that live on the Antarctic ice and the frigid surrounding waters. Of the many species of penguin, the emperor penguins are the largest.

          Unlike other birds, the male and females emperor penguins are similar in plumage and size. They reach a height of about 130 centimetres and their weight ranges from 22 to 45 kilograms. Small fish, crustaceans such as krill and cephalopods such as squid constitute their diet.

          Emperor penguins have some very interesting characteristic traits. They can remain submerged underwater up to 18 minutes at a depth of 535 metres while hunting. These penguins huddle together to escape wind and conserve warmth. When they do this, individual birds take turns to move inside the huddle so that each of them remains warm.

          Once a penguin is warm, it moves to the perimeter of the group so that others can get inside to get protection from the frosty climate.

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          The Tickell’s blue flycatcher is named after Samuel Tickell, a British ornithologist who worked on these birds in India and Burma.

          Tickell’s blue flycatcher is a small bird around 12 cm in length and is covered with blue and orange plumage. They hunt flying insects for food. They may also go for various crawling insects if in need. These birds are very active, and are used to human presence. They are seen hunting even after dusk. Their hunting style varies from single hunting, pair hunting, of even group hunting in mixed species. They build their nest in trees holes or rocky voids, lined with fine grass and fibres. Their preferred breeding locations are open forests, groves and gardens in the vicinity of water. Three to five eggs can be seen in a nest.

          These birds are seen in good numbers in many regions of Asia, especially from India to China. They are considered to be of ‘Least Concern’ by the IUCN.

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          Remember Red from the video game Angry Birds? Most of us would have laughed at its angry, yet funny face and its wrath on the pigs at one point or the other. Red resembles the northern cardinal. Commonly known as the red bird or common cardinal, they have a bright red plumage and a pointed crest.

         The northern cardinal is a territorial song bird. Instead of fighting with pigs and monkeys like Red and his team, in reality, the male cardinal sits on a high location and whistles loud and clear to defend its territory. It's rarely aggressive and when angry, it fights to defend its territory. It is a medium sized bird that feeds on seeds buds and berries. Occasionally it feasts on insects as Well.

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          The Gurney’s pitta was thought to be extinct for a period after 1952. Bird watches had a special affection towards the pitta and it was voted as the most wanted bird in Thailand. The clearance of natural forests in Burma and peninsular Thailand has led to the decline in its number, making it a rarity. Luckily, it was rediscovered in 1986; it is still endangered though not extinct.

          The Gurney’s pitta is a medium sized passerine bird which feeds on slugs, insects and earthworms and breeds on the Malay Peninsula.

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