Southern Africa Rest of the World
1) Great Grey Owls Great Grey Owls in Canada have feathered discs around their face which act as radars to focus the sound more clearly as well as shielding the sound from reaching the other side of the head. This gives the owl a clearer sound-picture that comes in stereo. They use this ability to listen for lemmings beneath the surface of the snow and are able to pinpoint exactly where the source of the sound is coming from as well as the depth beneath the snow. They are then able to fly down from their perch and catch their prey through the snow without being able to see it.
2) Oriental Pied Hornbills Oriental Pied Hornbills of South East Asia are essentially black and white birds, but many hornbills in that area are also black and white. However, in order to appear more distinctive, they squeeze a yellow oil from a yellow preen gland on their rump and paint the oil as make-up onto patches on their wings, neck and bill giving them a different look. Other types of hornbills do a similar thing with different colours of oil so that the species appear more different.
3) Asian Openbills Asian Openbills in Thailand bring water back to their chicks on the nest in their crops. They then empty this over their chick as a shower to help cool them from the heat of the day.
4) Rufous Woodpeckers Rufous Woodpeckers in Southern India dig out hollow nests to lay their eggs in the middle of ant heaps. The ants eventually get used to the new member and the woodpecker egg has safety from predators.
5) Plovers Plover adults fake a crippled leg if intruders get too close to the nest. This play-acting leads predators away from the nest thinking they can make an easier meal of the adult. When far enough away from the nest, the adult quickly recovers and returns to the nest.
6) Spectacled Eiders Spectacled Eiders live happily with plenty of food in the tundra areas of Canada in Summer. However in Winter when the Arctic freezes, the entire World population congregates in 6 isolated places in tightly packed groups. Their movement and heat generated at these places prevents the ice from freezing in winter, creating a hole in the ice which they can use to continue fishing from.
7) Oilbirds Oilbirds live in dark caves and are able to navigate by Sound, creating a clear view of the inside of the dark cave by Eco-location. The sound waves produced are similar to those created by bats. They are not insectivores like other nightjars but feed at night on fruit which they find by smell when there are few raptors around.
8) Hornbills Hornbill males wall up te female into a hole cavity in the tree with a combination of mashed food, droppings and spittal. The female stays there for 3 months laying the eggs and raising the chicks until they are ready to leave. They are totally dependant on the male who fetches food for them.
9) Yellow-rumped Thornbills Yellow-rumped Thornbills have fake cup-shaped nest on top of the real nest which is below it. This acts very well as a dummy showing intruders such as Currawongs that the nest is empty whereupon they lose interest and leave.
10) Blue Mannikins Blue Mannikin males work as a team to perform a combined courtship display dance for the female. The team captain then sounds an alarm when the female is interested telling the rest of the team to disappear so that he can mate with the female.
11) Superb Lyrebirds Superb Lyrebirds imitate any sound or call from another species it hears. When displaying to females, it is very attractive to have a large repertoire of sounds such as the calls of other species or the sounds of car-alarms, camera-shutters, chain-saws, motors etc.
12) Acorn Woodpecker Acorn Woodpeckers from the USA chisel small holes in the bark of trees and place an acorn in each one so there is food reserves for Winter. As the acorns shrink and dry, they become smaller so the woodpecker replaces them into smaller holes in a constant maintenance of the lader. Eventually the entire tree is covered by holes with acorns in them.
13) Hillstar Hummingbirds Hillstar Hummingbirds of the Andes have a heart rate of 1000 beats per minute during the day, but at night when it returns to its nest, its heart-rate becomes almost zero during the cold. It therefore undergoes a mini-hibernation each night of its life or about 365 hibernations each year.
14) Jays Jays can carry up to 9 acorns at a time in their crop when transpoting them back to their nests. They then store them (up to 3000) by burying them in the ground for Winter. Amazingly they can remember exactly where most of them were buried.
15) Crows Crows and Jays deliberately land on ant nests and stir up the ants which swarm all over them. The ants release a formic acid which acts as an insecticide to help keep its feathers clean and rids them of parasites.
16) Sword-billed Hummingbirds Sword-billed Hummingbirds have developed exclusive rights to be the only species to be able to drink nectar out of the Trumpet Ditura flowers and Passion flowers. As the flower developed to become longer and longer, so did the bill of the hummingbird to match the flower which is now the length of the rest of the body. This however has some disadvantages such as the preening of feathers. Here the hummingbird must balance on one foot while the other can be used for preening.
17) Galapagos Finches Galapagos Finches dont have bills shaped well enough to be able to dig to grubs out of wood. Instead they have learned to use a cactus spine or other tool to dig them out. It also uses these tools for stabbing or levering.
18) Fieldfares Fieldfares in Europe live in groups of 30-40 for greater protection. When an intruder gets to close, it is mobbed by the adults who bomb it with excrement. This can damage the wings and feathers of intruders such as crows.
19) Hoatzins Hoatzins have developed 2 compartments in the stomach. Because their diet consists mainly of slowly digestable leaves, one compartment has bacteria which helps ferment the meal.
20) Hedge Sparrows Hedge Sparrow in the UK live lives of great infidelity. The female has an Alpha male partner who she lives with. She also has a roving eye and can be attracted away from her male by another when he is not around. She then flirts with the Beta male and then mates with him afterwhich she returns back to the Alpha male and flirts with him. However if he realises that something is wrong he pecks her genital opening repeatedly unil she ejects the rivals sperm drop. In this way the alpha male ensures his genes are passed on while she keeps 2 males happy and has 2 males to help raise the chick.
21) Dippers Dippers have developed to be able to plunge right into the water and walk on the bottom of fast moving streams. They have developed a dense oily plumage which retains air to such a degree that it keeps them warm and insulated. This however makes them very buoyant and it is difficult for them to stay beneath the water. They can last for about 15 seconds.
22) Potoos Potoos, similar to Nightjars and Frogmouths have excellent camouflage against tree branches. If danger gets too close it will change posture pointing upwards and closing its eyes to appear exactly like a stump. Although the Potoos eyelids are closed, it is still able to see its predator through 2 grooves in the base of its eyelid.
23) Bowerbirds Bowerbirds are excellent interior artists and create neat piles of flowers, beetle wings,fruits, glass, coins and other shiny objects at the entrance of their bowers to attract females. Each male has a different artistic sense and each bower is different.
24) Wrybills Wrybills (a type of plover) in New Zealand have uniquely curved beaks which curve to the right hand side. This allows them to probe beneath large heavy stones that they couldnt ordinarily move.
25) Hummingbirds The colours on Hummingbirds brightly coloured bibs and breasts comes from refraction of light rather than from cell pigment. The feathers reflect ultraviolet light (which we cant see) but to their eyes makes them appear even more brilliantly coloured and vivid than to us.
26) Rufous Woodpeckers Rufous Woodpeckers in Southern India have developed a very stiff tail which helps act as a prop when balancing on vertical tree trunks while drilling holes.
27) Ancient Murrulets Ancient Murrulets spend only the first 2 days of life on land as well as when they return to lay their eggs. When the chicks are 2 days old their parents call their chicks from where they sit in the sea and they run through the forest floor to the beach where they join their parents and swim off further out to sea.
28) Rheas Rhea nests are run by the males who mate with many females, each of whom lays an egg in his clutch. In the end he has many eggs all from different females. The females then leave and find a new male to lay for. Males then look after the nest and raise the chicks.
29) Hoatzins Hoatzins have hooks on their wing carpal joints to keep them secure while climbing trees. Chicks who fall out of their nests and into the river below can use their hooks to pull themselves out before piranha arrive.
30) Gouldian Finches Gouldian Finch chicks usually live in very dark holes in trees. To help the returning adult place food in the mouth of the chick in the dark, they have very brightly coloured blue&yellow diamond patches on the edge of the mouth.
31) Saddlebacks Each individual Saddleback has a unique and different call and pitch of notes. This helps them determine exactly where their neighbours are and whether a new individual (IE new sound) has invaded their territory.
32) Crows Crows in cities have devised clever ways of opening hard-to-crack nuts. They drop them onto roads. Some that are too tough to crack are dropped in front of oncoming traffic where the car-wheels crack them. Some clever crows realised that dropping them at intersections or crossings allows time to go down and collect the contents when the traffic has stopped.
33) Gnatcatchers In North America, if another bird (such as a Cowbird) lays an egg in the nest of a Gnatcatcher, the Gnatcatcher sees the different egg and then destroys the entire nest realising that the foreign egg will grow up and evict its chick from the nest. The building material from the nest is disassembled and taken to a new location where a new nest is constructed leaving all the eggs to fall to the ground.
34) Magpie Geese Australian Magpie Geese often have 3 adults to a clutch, one male and 2 females. This allows 3 adults to defend the young chicks from hawks, sea-eagles and crocodiles. In this way, family groups with 3 adults are able to raise more chicks successfully as there is safety in numbers.
35) Canvasbacks Female Canvasbacks (ducks) from Canada who havent built nests, lay their eggs in other females nests by climbing into the nest, pushing the other female aside and laying the egg. This distributing of eggs among other nests acts as an insurance policy against predators such as racoons meaning that all ones eggs are not put into one basket.
36) Dusky Swifts Dusky Swifts in Brazil nest behind waterfalls where there is safety from predators. However, they must fly through the water to get to their chicks.
37) Maleo Maleo in Indonesia lay their eggs in sand that is heated by the sun. The female buries them at the right depth so that they are not too deep and therefore too cold and then leaves them there, never having to incubate them.
38) Crossbills Crossbills in the USA have developed the ability to twist their bill in opposite directions to get into difficult pine cones.
39) Emperor Penguins Emperor Penguin males in the Antarctic hold the eggs on their feet off the ice to prevent them from freezing. Breeding starts from before Winter sets in as Summer is so short. The females return from 4 months at sea fishing and replace the males who had clustered together for warmth during that time.
40) Kakapos Kakapo males inflate air-sacs in their chest cavities which act as resonators which help their booming calls reach further down into the valley.
41) Frigatebirds Frigatebirds harass smaller birds, such as boobies, stealing their fish or forcing them to disgorge a fish they just swallowed. These aerial pirates then seize the fish in midair. Frigatebirds also pluck fish from the water's surface. They cannot land on water because their feathers are poorly water-proofed and, with their long, thin wings, frigate birds would not be able to get enough of a down stroke to take off again.