Beauty Is in the Eye of the Beholder

All of these birds have one thing in common – they are birds. They all have feathers and beaks but they greatly differ one from the other.

North Island brown kiwi is the national bird of New Zealand. These birds have very long beaks that are made from ivory. They’re the only birds in the world to have external nostrils at the tip of their beaks. They make their home on the North Island living on scrub-like farmland, pine plantations, and their native forests. Their diets consist of earthworms, beetles, insects, snails, crayfish, fruits, and berries.

Kakapos are known as owl parrots and are endemic to New Zealand. These birds cannot fly having short wings. Kakapos live in a variety of habitats, including tussocklands, scrublands, and coastal areas. They also inhabited forests dominated by podocarps, beeches, tawa, and rata. They have yellowish moss-green upper parts or mottled with black or brownish gray blending in with native vegetation. Their breasts and flanks are yellowish-green streaked with yellow. They eat native plants, seeds, fruits, pollen, and even the sapwood of trees.

Superb Bird of Paradise makes its home in the rainforests of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. The male birds are black with iridescent green crowns, blue-green breast covers, and long velvety black erectile capes covering their backs. The females are reddish-brown with brownish-barred buffs. Their diets consist of fruits and insects but can prey on larger animals like frogs, reptiles, and other small birds.

Magnificent frigate birds are seabirds making their homes in the tropical and subtropical waters off America and on the Galapagos Islands and Cape Verde. These birds have brownish-black plumage, long narrow wings, and a deeply forked tail. The oddest thing about them is that the male birds have a striking red gular sac which they inflate to attract females. They can take fish in flight as they fly over the surface of the ocean.

Greater prairie chickens are also known as pinnated grouses. They’re a North American species of grouse. In the US they live in Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, and southeastern Texas. They prefer undisturbed prairie particularly tall grass prairies and oak savannas. Adults of both sexes are medium to large chicken-like birds with stocky round wings. Adult males have orange comb-like feathers over their eyes and dark, elongated head feathers. These birds also have a circular, un-feathered neck patch that can be inflated and is orange. For food, they peck on seeds on the ground and look for insects. They also feed in trees picking on fruit and berries.

Long-wattled umbrella birds live in the rainforests of Central and South America. They are a rare species of bird named for its distinct umbrella-like hood. These birds live in humid montane forests on the ridges and sides of the Andes range. They are mostly herbivores feeding on large fruits.

Great potoos are nocturnal birds living in Central and South America. Their habitats include humid and semi-humid forests mostly dense lowland forests and clearings. Their eyes are very large with a brown to yellow iris and short, broad beaks, Their feathers can vary with white, gray, black, and burgundy. Great potoos are carnivores, mainly insectivores. Their prey consists mostly of large flying insects, especially large beetles, katydids, crickets, and grasshoppers. Bats and birds are taken occasionally as well.

Helmeted hornbills make their homes on the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, and Borneo. They are referred to as “farmers of the rainforest” since they spread seeds. The casque of the helmeted hornbills is solid and is the source of red ivory with white ivory so their lives are endangered. They have bare wrinkled throat patches, pale-blue to greenish in females and red in males. They feed mostly on large fruit like figs, However, they are also known to hunt lizards, squirrels, nesting birds, and snakes.