Imagine a cardinal and an owl. How do they look different from each other? Size and color probably come to mind first. The male cardinal’s bright red color helps it pop in the trees, even with his smaller size. This contrasts with the brown and gray coloring that helps much larger owls camouflage so well in the trees.
Larger body size often means larger wings, feathers, feet and beaks. But are those body parts the same, just larger? Like copy and pasting an image and making it larger on a smart board? You’ll have to take a close look to find out. Let’s zoom in on just one of those body parts this time — bird beaks.
Imagine the cardinal and owl again. But this time focus on their beaks. Have you ever thought about what their beaks look like? Compare the two pictures above. What differences do you see?
Cones
The cardinal’s orange beak kind of looks like a safety cone. The upper jaw or beak, called the maxilla, and lower jaw or beak, called the mandible, are thick at the base and meet at a point at the end. They even look orange, like those cones!
Words to know
Conical: Having the shape of a cone.
Contrast: To differ strikingly or to be different from something else in close association.
This cone shape provides a powerful cracking ability for these seed eaters. Using their beaks, they crack hard shells, like sunflower seeds, to get to the delicious nut meat inside. Sparrows and grosbeaks also have conical beaks for cracking.
Hooks
In contrast, the great horned owl’s maxilla and mandible are a different size and shape. The longer maxilla hooks over the shorter mandible. How might owls use a hooked beak? The cardinal’s beak shape gave a clue that it eats seeds. Does the owl’s beak give clues too?
Yes! Owls are carnivores, or meat eaters. Meat can be tough to eat. People use knives and forks to cut it into smaller pieces. But owls don’t have silverware. Instead, owls use their strong, hooked beaks to tear off pieces of meat, like using a staple remover to tear staples out of a stack of paper or a wall. Look for a hooked beak on other birds of prey like eagles and hawks.
Cardinals and owls demonstrate two types of beaks. How many more can you think of?
Tweezers
Some birds have beaks with a conical shape similar to cardinals, only thinner and pointier like a pair of tweezers. This type of beak works great for catching insects as they fly or digging worms out of the ground. Tweezers make great berry pickers too!
Can you think of any birds that eat insects, worms or berries? Robins are most commonly spotted around here. Warblers and cedar waxwings sport thin, pointed beaks too.
Chisels
Some birds pluck bugs out of the air or dig them out of the ground with their long, thin, tweezer beaks. But juicy bugs are other places too. Like in the bark of trees. How would you get something out of a tree trunk? Can you think of a tool to use?
You would need to bore, or drill, a hole into the wood to dig out the bugs. It would take a really sharp beak working like a chisel to get the job done. What birds can chisel with their beak?
Woodpeckers! It’s right in their name. They peck the wood to get to the insects, then use their long tongues to slurp them up. Some woodpeckers even make holes to stash seeds, nuts or acorns in for later. They use trees like we use kitchen cabinets!
Pipettes
What about our nectar drinkers, like the ruby-throated hummingbird? Sweet drops of nectar collect in the base of flowers’ blooms. Hummingbirds’ long, thin and hollow beaks poke into these tiny places to suck up the nectar.
Have you ever used a pipette or an eye dropper to get liquid medicine out of a bottle? Hummingbird beaks work in a similar way.
Colanders
Have you ever used a colander to strain noodles from water? Or to sift sand on the beach? Some birds have bills, or beaks, that work the same way — straining the yummy insects, fish and plant bits from water or mud. Any guesses? Water and mud are big clues.
Ducks have long, flat beaks. They skim the water’s surface, keeping the good food in their mouths and letting the water (or mud) run out. What if you tried that the next time you cooked pasta? Can you imagine skipping the colander and just using your lower jaw to scoop out the noodles and letting the water run out of your mouth? You probably wouldn’t get asked to cook again!
Next time you see a bird, try to focus on its beak. Can you get a close enough look to figure out which shape or tool it most resembles? What does a bird’s beak tell you about what it eats? If you want to find a certain bird, it could be helpful to look in habitats where you can find its food.
Visit one of the Forest Preserve District of Will County’s visitor centers to find a variety of habitats, like woodlands, prairies and wetlands, along with bird feeder areas all within a short hike.
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