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Web Sites About Birds:: Bird Video Collection

Birds are vertebrates that are covered in feathers and have wings that allow for flight. They have light skeletons, feathers adapted for different purposes like flight and insulation, and respiratory, digestive, and circulatory systems suited for flight. There are over 9,000 bird species worldwide with varied diets, habitats, behaviors, and roles that can be both helpful and harmful to humans.

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Toke Sadock
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75 views

Web Sites About Birds:: Bird Video Collection

Birds are vertebrates that are covered in feathers and have wings that allow for flight. They have light skeletons, feathers adapted for different purposes like flight and insulation, and respiratory, digestive, and circulatory systems suited for flight. There are over 9,000 bird species worldwide with varied diets, habitats, behaviors, and roles that can be both helpful and harmful to humans.

Uploaded by

Toke Sadock
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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There are over 8,000 species of birds.

Birds have 3 major differentiating characteristics: wings for flight, fe


beak rather than teeth.

Birds have adapted their vertebrate skeleton for flight. Their bones and skull are very thin, making their bod
light.

To support flight also required other changes to their skeleton. Obvious changes are the addition of wings.
Other changes are less obvious. The claws and muscles of a bird's
foot are designed to lock and hold onto a perch even while the bird
is sleeping.

A bird's respiratory system is also adapted to make it easier to


breathe at high elevations, where air is thinner.

For more information on birds, see our Bird Video Collection.

Web Sites about Birds:


Birds section of Animal Kingdom

Audubon Adventures Watch List for Kids from the Audubon Society

The Journey North helps students follow bird migration

The Great Backyard Bird Count Identification Guide from the Cornell Orinthology Laboratory

www.kidport.com/reflib/science/animals/Birds.htm

Birds are a class of the chordates or vertebrate phylum. They are similar to
other chordates in that they have a backbone. They are unique in the fact
that they are covered with feathers and fly. There are four types of feathers
for birds:

 Down Feathers - These keep both young and old birds warm. They
are soft.
 Filoplumes - These are thin and hairlike with tufts on the end.
 Contour Feathers - These cover and protect the body and give the
bird its color. The color of these feathers can depend on whether the
bird is the male or female of the species.
 Quill Feathers - These large, strong feathers are in the wings and tail
and help the bird with flying.

There are about 9000 species of birds, with 24 orders and 146 families.
Scientists believe that birds evolved from reptiles and dinosaurs.

Birds are found throughout the world, from the tropics to polar regions.
One unique characteristic of many birds is their tendency to migrate. This
means that the birds move from colder to warmer areas as the winter
approaches.

Birds can be both helpful and harmful to man. They are helpful as they
frequently eat harmful insects. They provide food for man. They are pets
and can be very decorative. They are harmful when they eat crops and kill
animals.

The study of birds is ornithology.

Birds Videos

Click on the links below to go to pages with specific birds' pictures.

 Passeriformes (Perching Birds- larks, swallows, shrikes, wrens,


thrushes, warblers, blackbirds, tits, finches, weavers, sparrows,
starlings, birds of paradise, crows)
 Picaforms (Woodpeckers, toucans)
 Anseriformes (Ducks, swans, geese, screamers)
 Falconiformes (Eagles, falcons, buzzards, hawks, kites)
 Strigiformes (Owls)
 Columbiformes (Doves, pigeons)
 Speniciformes (Penguins)
 Psittaciformes (Parrots, parakeets, macaws)
 Galliformes (Turkeys, grouse, pheasants)

System Type Birds System


A bird has an internal skeleton with two
pairs of limbs attached to the main body
with two legs and two wings. Their bones
Muscular- are full of holes and are very light to allow
Skeletal them to fly. Their bodies are also
streamlined for flight. They have a wide
range of feet, depending on where they
live and what they eat.
A bird eats a great deal. They mainly eat
insects and seeds, although some eat
fruits and other animals. They take in
water through their beaks and tip their
Digestion heads back to swallow. Beaks are in a
variety of sizes and shapes, depending
on the bird's diet. A bird has a mouth,
esophagus, stomach, crop,
gizzard,intestines, liver and pancreas.
A bird has relatively large eyes that allow
it to judge distance well and an excellent
Nervous sense of hearing. Their tongues are used
to feel things. They have beautiful voices.
They have a brain and spinal cord.
A bird is warm-blooded. The bird has an
excellent heart that pumps vigorously to
Circulation
allow energy to get to all parts of the
bird's body for flight.
A bird has lungs to breathe with as well
Respiration
as a trachea and nostrils.
A bird reproduces sexually when a male
bird places sperm in the female so that
the female's eggs are fertilized in her
body. The bird lays eggs that have a
Reproduction protective shell. Sometimes the male
helps the female warm the eggs.
Baby birds require care and therefore the
birds build nests for them to live and
hatch in.
A bird has skin covered with feathers.
They lose their feathers or molt once a
year. New feathers grow back to replace
Excretion
the old ones. The bird has kidneys and a
ureter to excrete liquid wastes and
intestines and a rectum for solid wastes.
Symmetry A bird has bilateral symmetry.
A bird ranges in size from around two
inches to seven feet. Birds can be many
Appearance
colors. Frequently the male is more
colorful and the female is drab.

http://www.mcwdn.org/Animals/Bird.html

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