The Wisconsin School of the Air presents Robert S.
Ellerson, University of Wisconsin
Extension Specialist and Wildlife Management, and the
wonderful world of nature.
This series of programs designed for in-school viewing
by children and grades 5 through 9 is televised
each Monday afternoon at 2 o'clock by University
of Wisconsin Television.
Now Robert Ellerson and the wonderful world of nature.
This is a Cooper's Hawk Boys and Girls.
I'm sure that none of you had any
difficulty in recognizing this particular animal as a bird.
Birds as a group of animals are remarkably similar.
All of them have wings, all of all birds have feathers,
and all birds have bills, and all birds have wings.
Now, bills and feet.
Today boys and girls, we're going
to be talking about the bills and feet of birds.
Because the bills and feet of birds are the one part of
birds that show some remarkable differences or adaptations.
And we are interested in adaptations because they
enable animals in general to live in different types
of habitats or environment.
Now today we're going to look at a group of birds with
different types of adaptations of their bills and feet.
And the first bird we're going to look at today is
one which you are all very familiar with.
I am sure it's our friend the Cardinal.
The Cardinal is a typical songbird.
One of the adaptations of the Cardinal
is this heavy conical bill.
This heavy bill of the Cardinal enables this bird to feed on
hard seeds, and it can crack these hard seeds and get at
the kernel inside of the seed.
One other thing that we want to look at as far as this Cardinal
is concerned is the feet.
Notice that the feet of the Cardinal are adapted
to perching, perching on twigs and on branches.
Many of our songbirds have this particular adaptation.
Some of the other songbirds which
are adapted to perching and which have bills similar to the
Cardinal are the sparrows and the finches and the grossbeats.
There are still other birds in this group of perching birds
which do not feed on hard seeds.
Rather they are birds which feed on insect light.
One of the very common birds which feeds on insects
is a little bird known that we call a warbler.
There are many different kinds of warblers and the month
of May is a very good time of the year to see these
brightly colored little birds passing through our state.
We usually see them high on the tops of trees, hopping
about, picking up insects from the leaves and the
twigs in the tree tops.
Now the bill of the warbler is adapted to feeding on insects.
It is a very long slender bill.
Notice how sharp it is.
It is a type of bill which is very well suited to
picking insects off of the leaves of the trees.
The feet of the little warblers too are very similar to
those of the Cardinal because it too is a perching bird.
Now there are still other birds which feed on insects and one of
the birds that feeds on insects finds these insects beneath
the bark of trees and sometimes even in the wood of trees.
I am sure that all of you know what bird I am speaking about
now. How many of you know?
Well let's go and take a look at the bird that I am referring
to. It is a woodpecker.
This is a Downey Woodpecker.
One of the very common woodpeckers in Wisconsin.
I am sorry boys and girls this is not a Downey
but a hairy woodpecker.
We saw this bird in our program last time if you will recall.
Now there the woodpecker has several adaptations both
of its bill and of its feet.
And if you will come over to the blackboard I will point
out these adaptations to you.
The bill of the woodpecker is not sharp rather it is
rather square on the end.
As a matter of fact it looks something like a chisel.
If we look at it from the side it is square.
However if we look at the bill
of the bird from the top we find that it is very
sharp and pointed.
In other words it is shaped just
exactly like a wood chisel.
And of course this enables the bird to peck down
through the bark and into the wood of the trees
and find the insects that it needs for food.
If we take a look at the feet of the woodpecker
we find some interesting adaptations there too.
A typical bird's foot has three toes pointing forward
and one pointing back.
This is the typical pattern in a perching bird's foot.
In the case of the woodpecker we find one of these four toes
more or less rotated around so that it points almost backwards.
In other words the woodpecker has two toes pointing forward
and two pointing backward.
And this adaptation enables the bird to grasp the trunk
of the tree and hold on as it digs into the bark.
So both the bill and the feet of the woodpecker are
adapted to its way of life.
Now there are still other birds which feed on insects.
And the bird that I am thinking about now is a bird that is
a very very excellent flyer.
And it catches the insects that it feeds on on the wing.
It feeds exclusively on flying insects.
How many of you know what bird I am referring to now?
Well there are a number of birds in this category
but I am thinking particularly of the swallows.
We have a number of different kinds of swallows in Wisconsin.
This little skin that I have here is the skin
of a cliff swallow.
Notice that the bill of this swallow is quite short
in comparison to the bill of the of the warbler.
However the bill of the swallow extends quite a
distance back into the side of the bird's head.
Now these bill of these birds are very small and do not show
up too well on television.
So you will have to look closely.
Notice the bill extends clear back into the
side of the bird's head.
So that when the bird opens its mouth its mouth is very large
and it enables these birds to snap up the insects out of
the air as they skim about.
The feet of the swallow are also interesting because
the feet of the swallow are very small in proportion
to the rest of the bird.
They are very short and when we do see swallows on the ground
they hop about very awkwardly because their feet are so small.
Actually the home of the swallow is in the air.
Now turning from these birds which are more at home in
the air than they are on the ground we can go to a
group of birds which are more at home on the ground than
they are any other place.
And birds which are typical of this group are the growls.
And the specimen that we have today is a sharp tailed grouse.
This is typical of many of our ground dwelling game birds.
This bird belongs to the same family of birds that
the chickens belong to.
Notice that its bill is quite chicken light and also its
feet are quite chicken light.
They are strong feet and enable the bird to run about the ground
with a great deal of speed.
Now one of the interesting things about the feet
of the grouse is the fact that in the wintertime
grouse grows snowshoes.
They are birds most of them of the north country.
And in the wintertime when there is deep snow on the
ground these birds continue to live on the ground.
And nature has provided them with a special adaptation.
If we examine the feet of a grouse in the wintertime we
find that along the sides of the toes there are a series of
little comb-like projections.
Grow out only in the wintertime.
And these comb-like projections increase the surface of
the foot by almost twice.
And so these birds can walk about right on the surface of
the snow without sinking in.
And so are much better adapted to their environment.
Now let us go back to our friend the Cooper's Hawk.
This bird belongs to a group of birds called the raptors.
It's spelled R-A-P-T-O-R-S.
The raptors are birds which kill their own food.
They live on other animals and this group of birds includes
both the hawks and the owls.
And this Cooper's Hawk is a very good example of a raptor.
All raptors have certain adaptations in common.
The builds of raptors are short and very powerful and have
a hook on the end of them.
This Hawk beak of the raptors enables the animals to tear
the flesh of their prey and to enable them to tear it
from the bones and eat it.
Going to the feet of the raptors you can see that the
feet are equipped with very long extremely sharp claws.
These claws are just like needles and these strong
feet of the raptors are the tools with which these
animals kill their prey.
Most raptors do not use their beak in killing animals
rather than the pen on the sharp talons or claws.
And these are some of the adaptations of this
interesting group of birds.
Now going from the raptors we can refer to still
another bird which has a very specialized food.
This bird lives almost entirely on earthworms.
It's a bird which makes its home in the brushy marshes and
the wet woodlands of Wisconsin.
And they usually return to our state along in marsh.
It's a marsh, it's a migratory bird and the bird I'm
referring to is the woodcock.
The woodcock is a game bird.
In other words it's hunted in the fall of the year,
forced for and for food.
The woodcock has one of the longest builds of any of our
birds in proportion to its size.
Notice the very long, proble like, porcelake,
bill of this bird.
This is a special adaptation that it has for obtaining
its food the earthworms.
This bird runs its beak, clear down into the ground to a
depth of two inches or more and locates the earthworms.
And one of the very striking adaptations of this bill is
that the very tip of this bill can open up and grasp an
earthworm and pull it out of the ground for the bird to feed on.
The woodcock has rather small weak feet.
And as a result, the woodcock is usually found in areas that
have very little ground covered.
It is a bird that prefers open ground, the bare ground
beneath the tufts of marsh grass and beneath the brush
in the marshes and wet woods.
Last of all boys and girls, I'd like to turn to a group of
birds which I'm sure all of you are very, very familiar with.
They are birds that we call waterfowl.
And in particular, we want to talk about ducks today.
Ducks, of course, are birds which live very close to water.
They spend much of their time on the water.
And the one thing that all ducks have in common is the web feet.
This is a typical wild duck.
And you can see these very large web feet.
These web feet enable the bird to walk on soft marshy
ground and they also enable the bird to swim in the water.
They are very efficient paddles, but not all ducks
feed on the same type of food.
Some ducks depend on different types of food.
And of course, as one might expect, they have certain
adaptations or specializations of their bill which enables
them to obtain these special types of food.
One of the interesting ducks which has a special type of food
is a bird we call the shoveler.
And or sometimes it's called a spoon bill.
You will notice that the bill is very broad and spoon shaped.
This bird feeds on seeds and on insects, which it finds
in the mud and the ooze of the bottom wood legs.
And rivers.
If we look closely at this bill, we can see that along
the edge of the bill there are a series of little
fine tooth-like strainer.
And these little strainer help the bird to obtain its food.
The bird squeezes the mud through its bill and the
seeds and little insects are retained in the bird's
mouth and it swallows them.
Still another duck which has a specialized bill is
the duck called a merganzer.
There are several kinds of merganzers, but one
of the other names for merganzers is fish ducks.
These birds, as the name implies, live on fish.
And their bill is very, very specialized for this
particular type of food.
If we look at the bill of a merganzer, we find that
it is much narrower than the bill of a shoveler.
It is almost round and very slender.
And along the edges of the bill are a series
of very sharp teeth.
All of these teeth point back towards the back of the duck's
mouth and on the tip of the bill is quite a decided hook.
These are adaptations which enable this duck to capture
fish beneath the surface of the water and hold out of
these slippery fish and bring them to the surface where
they are eaten by the bird.
These are just two of the very interesting
adaptations of ducks' bills.
And certainly the whole world of nature, all of the
birds show different types of adaptations of both
their bills and their feet.
Today we have seen how some of these adaptations of
birds, bills and feet enable them to live in their chosen
environment and to live a successful life in these areas.
And that's all for now, boys and girls, so long.
Each Monday afternoon at 2 o'clock, the Wisconsin School
of the Air presents Robert S.
Ellerson, University of Wisconsin Extension Specialist
and Wildlife Management in the wonderful world of nature.
This series of programs is designed for in-school
viewing by children in grades 5 through 9.
Next Monday at 2 o'clock, our television classroom will
again view the wonderful world of nature.
We invite you to join us today.
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