Bird
Feathered bipedal vertebrates with lightweight hollow bones, toothless beaks, and high metabolic rates.
European Herring Gull
A large, pink-legged gull that paddles its feet on the ground to bring worms up, and now nests on rooftops as well as cliffs.
European Robin
Gardener's shadow, ferociously territorial songster, and the bird that became the Victorian icon of Christmas.
European Starling
The iridescent mimic whose larger British winter roosts can top a million birds, and whose flocks can burst into a "flash expansion" after a falcon attacks.
European Storm Petrel
The Atlantic's smallest seabird, weighing about 25 grams but migrating from the north-east Atlantic to winter off southern Africa.
Gentoo Penguin
A penguin whose tracked deep dives averaged 80 metres, whose nest can hold over 1,700 pebbles, and which one 2020 study proposes splitting into four species.
Gouldian Finch
A small Australian finch whose red or black head color traces to one stretch of DNA near the Follistatin gene, and whose chicks hatch with light-reflecting beak nodules that help their parents feed them in a dark hollow.
Great Blue Heron
Waits in shallow water, then strikes with a rapid thrust of the bill
Great Cormorant
A fish-chasing diver with wettable feathers, which has to hang out its wings to dry.
Great Crested Grebe
The diving bird whose courtship runs from paired head-shaking to a breast-to-breast 'Penguin-dance,' and whose chicks ride on their parents' backs.
Greater Flamingo
Pink from pigments in its food, a filter-feeding bill that works upside down, and a one-legged stance scientists aren't sure about.
Greater Roadrunner
Ground-running desert cuckoo that hits up to 20 miles per hour, smashes prey against rocks, and warms up by sunbathing the black skin on its back.
Grey Heron
A fish-eater that usually hunts by standing still, then generally swallows its catch whole.
Grey Parrot
A grey parrot named Griffin outperformed 5-year-old children on a cup logic test.
Helmeted Guineafowl
A speckled ground bird with a bony helmet and a very loud alarm call, and a knack for staying upright when the ground drops away.
Hoatzin (Stinkbird)
A cow-style fermenting crop, wing-clawed chicks that swim from danger, and a place on the bird family tree debated since it was described in 1776.
House Sparrow
A plain brown bird that developed regional differences in color and size in North America.
Indian Peafowl
Iridescent member of the pheasant family whose feathers get their color from a two-dimensional photonic crystal, and whose train rattles out a broadband, pulsating sound.
Kea (Alpine Parrot)
A mountain parrot that matched human infants and chimpanzees on a probability test, and was persecuted as a sheep killer for over a century.
King of Saxony Bird-of-Paradise
A male's twin head plumes run twice his body length, worked by muscles housed in hollows of his skull, and his courtship song has been likened to radio static.
King Penguin
Sub-Antarctic penguin with an orange neck patch reaching its upper breast, second largest of all penguins, and a deep diver: tracked birds have gone past 240 meters.
Laughing Kookaburra
World's largest kingfisher, the bush's dawn alarm clock, and a snake-smashing hunter.
Magnificent Frigatebird
A seabird whose feathers aren't waterproof, riding wings up to eight feet across and mugging other birds for their catch.
Mallard
The wild ancestor of nearly all domestic ducks, and a hen that lays larger eggs after mating with a male she prefers.
Mandarin Duck
The tree-hole nesting duck whose drake grows an enlarged, brightly colored sail feather every breeding season.