Bird Beaks & Their Uses

Tearing Beak Birds of prey such as the eagle, hawk, falcon, and owl use their beak to tear their food into small pieces they can swallow.

Griffon Vulture DIET: Feeds on large dead mammals, taking only muscle meat and viscera. Their distended crops and gizzards can hold over 13 pounds of meat at a time.

Hook Beak Birds that eat fruit, berries, and vegetables have a hooked beak to help them dig into their food.

Yellow-Naped Amazon Parrot DIET: Fruits, seeds, nuts, berries, blossoms, and probably leaf buds.

Red-Billed Hornbill DIET: Obtains almost all food on the ground while running about. Feeds largely on insects - beetles, grasshoppers, termites, ants, fly larvae. Also takes geckos, birds' eggs and nestlings and scavenges dead rodents.

Chestnut Mandibled Toucan DIET: Primarily fruit and berries, but supplemented with large insects, small reptiles and amphibians, as well as the eggs and young of other birds.

Blue & Yellow Macaw DIET: Seeds, fruits, nuts and probably vegetable matter.

Spear-like Beak These birds have a beak with serrated edges and a hooked tip that helps them catch fish or minnows. The heron is such a bird.

Hammerkop DIET: Hammerkops feed on frogs, fish and invertebrates.

Louisiana Heron DIET: fish, crustaceans, and insects using their beak much like a spear.

Pelican DIET: fish

Crackers Beak Many birds that eat seeds must be able to crack open the hull that surrounds the seed. Birds such as finches and sparrows do this.

Speckled Pigeon DIET: Mainly a ground feeder. Feeds on seeds and cultivated grain.

Sparrow DIET: seeds with hard shells, sometimes flowers, insects, spiders, and berries.

Tweezers Beak Birds that pull worms and insects from the ground need tweezers-like beaks.

American Robin DIET: earthworms, grubs, butterflies, cherries, and blueberries

Straw-like Beak The hummingbird’s beak allow it to sip nectar from flowers. Some birds have probing beaks that allow them to find food in sand or mud.

Hummingbird DIET: nectar

Filtering Beak The bill of a duck is fringed to allow mud and water to escape while straining plants, seeds, and small animals for it to eat.

African Spoonbill DIET: Insects, larva, shellfish

Wood Duck DIET: plants, seeds, grasses and other small insects and animals that they find on or under the water. Aix sponsa

Lesser Flamingo DIET: Herbivorous, feeding solely on Spirulina plantensis, one of the blue-green algae growing within a very limited range of pH: 10.4 - 10.5. They are surface feeders filtering the top inch or two of water where the spirulina is to be found with the deep-keeled bill that is specialized for very fine food particles. They swim well and are able to forage over the complete surface of a lake (the "swim and skim" technique).

White-Faced Whistling Duck DIET: Invertebrates such as aquatic insects, mollusks and crustaceans as well as aquatic plants, seeds and rice. Commonly obtain food by diving.

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Can you match the beak with the food it catches?