All About Birds

Children today learn about birds by watching them in their natural homes

, in the trees, or on the ground. They see how the birds build their nests, lay their eggs, and then feed the hungry little birds after they are hatched. Most of these birds arc songbirds and perch ers, and there are so many types that even to list them would require a whole book. Most of these familiar birds belong to such species as the thrushes, larks, swallows, woodpeckers, sparrows, warblers, wrens, swifts, owls, jays, crows, and ravens.

We can say of birds that they are all covered with feathers, and that they all lay eggs, but we cannot say that they all fly. In fact, the biggest bird of all, the African ostrich, cannot fly at all, but runs very fast on its two powerful legs. The rhea, of South America, and the cassowary, of Australia, are both wingless birds related to the ostrich. Another type is the emu, also of Australia. Then there are the penguins, diving and swimming birds of the Antarctic. They have wings, not to fly with but to use as paddles in the water.

When they walk about on land, they look like little people dressed in frock coats, and are very comical. Many species of birds migrate, which means that they travel from one distant place to another, twice a year. The migrations are usually from north to south, and from south to north, and sometimes cover thousands of miles.

Ducks and geese spend the summer near the Arctic Circle, and during the fall they fly all the way to nesting grounds near the equator. Some of them stop along the way. Birds that make these semiannual flights are called migrator) birds, or birds of passage. Not much is known about their reasons for migrating, nor how they find their way over such distances. Pigeons, when they are taken from their homes, usually try to find their way back, and generally do. This habit is further trained in the birds, and they become known as "homing" pigeons, and are used to carry messages back to a home base, when they are released at another faraway place.

by: David Bunch

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