Indexer
Here are some facts that might amaze you, from candidates for the “Guinness Book of Bird Records” (if such a thing exists!)
The largest nest – the honour belongs to the bald eagle, which heaps so many sticks on to its nest (known as an eyrie) that the final result can weigh as much as a family car!
The largest egg – The volume of an ostrich’s egg is 24 times that of a chicken’s egg. You would also need a bit more than a teaspoon to crack it open if you had one for breakfast – you could stand on it and it still wouldn’t break!
The smallest egg – At the other end of the scale is the bee hummingbird that lays an egg that is only 6 millimetres (0.2inches) long.
Most eggs – The grey partridge lays anything from 15 to 19 eggs in a single clutch.
The biggest wingspan – The wandering albatross has a wingspan of 3.5 metres (11.5 feet). It also has the largest number of flight feathers of any bird, at 88.
The deepest diver – That is the emperor penguin. Although most dives do not exceed 100 metres (328 feet) they have been known to go as deep as 400 metres (1300 feet).
Fastest in the air – The peregrine can dive on its prey at up to 180 kilometres an hour (119 miles an hour).
Fastest runner among flying birds – The name is a clue, in that the roadrunner can reach a speed of 37 kilometres an hour (30 miles an hour).
Longest migration. The arctic tern spends its entire life in summer, due to the fact that it migrates from the Arctic to the Antarctic, and then back again, every year.
Staying aloft – When a young swift leaves the nest it might not come back to anything solid for another three years. Swifts do everything in mid-air apart from raising their young. If a swift lands on the ground it can have great trouble getting aloft again, due to its short legs and very long wings.
(All the photos have been taken from copyright-free sources)
I love birds and I enjoyed this post! Very interesting facts! I’ve been to an ostrich farm once, and according to the guide, these birds hold almost all the records, he seemed obsessed with them. They are amazing birds though.
Swifts sound like amazing birds too!
They are! There was a time when they featured in myths because people could not understand why they were never seen on land.
They are amazing facts about birds. I didn’t realise Ostrich eggs were so big!
I suppose an ostrich is at least 24 times bigger than a chicken, so the egg sizes should be comparable!