Story of bird lives revealed in beaks, feet

        As hundreds of millions of birds migrate into the Northeast over the next few weeks, those who spend time watching them are enthralled by their stunning colors, their beautiful songs, and their remarkable physiological adaptations that enable them to complete their journey. But few people spend much time thinking about bird beaks and feet, and yet those body parts tell us a great deal about how and where birds live and what they eat.
        Let’s start with their feet.
        Most songbirds, like robins and chickadees, have feet with three toes pointed forward and one pointed backwards. That’s an indication that these birds are perching birds. When they’re not flying around, they typically perch crosswise on a branch and grasp the branch by wrapping three toes around the front of the branch and one behind it.

Nashville warbler (Todd McLeish)

        But not all birds that spend time in trees do that.
        Woodpeckers, for instance, have two toes pointed forward and two toes pointed backwards, which better allows them to climb up the side of tree trunks and even cling upside down beneath branches. Nuthatches behave in a similar way, so their toe arrangement is also two forward and two back. Simply by noticing their toe arrangement you can tell how birds move around in a tree.
        The webbed feet of waterfowl is another obvious indication of where and how these birds live and move. As any child probably knows, webbed feet help birds paddle efficiently in the water. And for those ducks that dive underwater to catch fish or shellfish, webbed feet can be used to speed through the depths to capture their prey and navigate the underwater world.
        The claws of hawks and owls are also a clear sign that these are predators that capture and kill small mammals with their feet. So not only do bird feet tell us something about how they behave in a tree, but in this case, they also tell us what they eat.
        In most other birds, it’s their beak that reveals what they eat or where they find food. The big chunky beak of a cardinal announces to the world that it is a seed eating bird and that it opens seeds by crunching down like a Christmas nutcracker and crushing the outer shell of the seeds to access the inner goodness. Most sparrows, finches and buntings have a similar – albeit smaller – beak, which tells us they, too, are seedeaters.
        My first experience holding a cardinal was in an ornithology class many years ago. While attempting to place a metal band around the bird’s leg, it grabbed ahold of my knuckle in that massive beak and tried to crack open my finger like a walnut. It didn’t work, but it sure did leave a painful mark and, sad to say, forced me to let out an embarrassing yelp. Lesson learned; keep fingers away from seed-crunching birds.
        The beaks of other birds also tell us about their food preferences. The large, hooked beaks of hawks are used for tearing apart flesh; the long narrow beaks of many shorebirds are ideal for probing into the sand; the wide beaks of flycatchers and swallows are great for catching insects in flight; and the spatula-like beaks of ducks are useful for filtering algae from ponds. Without knowing anything else about these birds, a quick glance at their beaks gives away what they eat and how they find it.
        I’m not sure human mouths and feet tell a similar story. Or if they do, it’s not a story I’d want to read.

This article first appeared in the Newport Daily News on April 18.