Wing chord is an anatomical measurement of a bird's wing. The measurement is taken with the wing bent at a 90-degree angle, from the most prominent point of the wrist joint to the most prominent point of the longest primary feather. It is often taken as a standard measurement of the proportions of a bird and used to differentiate between species and subspecies. [1]
The wingspan of a bird or an airplane is the distance from one wingtip to the other wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777–200 has a wingspan of 60.93 metres, and a wandering albatross caught in 1965 had a wingspan of 3.63 metres, the official record for a living bird. The term wingspan, more technically extent, is also used for other winged animals such as pterosaurs, bats, insects, etc., and other aircraft such as ornithopters. In humans, the term wingspan also refers to the arm span, which is distance between the length from one end of an individual's arms to the other when raised parallel to the ground at shoulder height at a 90º angle. Former professional basketball player Manute Bol stands at 7 ft 7 in (2.31 m) and owns one of the largest wingspans at 8 ft 6 in (2.59 m).
The ibises are a group of long-legged wading birds in the family Threskiornithidae, that inhabit wetlands, forests and plains. "Ibis" derives from the Latin and Ancient Greek word for this group of birds. It also occurs in the scientific name of the cattle egret mistakenly identified in 1757 as being the sacred ibis.
Buteo is a genus of medium to fairly large, wide-ranging raptors with a robust body and broad wings. In the Old World, members of this genus are called "buzzards", but "hawk" is used in the New World. As both terms are ambiguous, buteo is sometimes used instead, for example, by the Peregrine Fund.
The great horned owl, also known as the tiger owl, or the hoot owl, is a large owl native to the Americas. It is an extremely adaptable bird with a vast range and is the most widely distributed true owl in the Americas. Its primary diet is rabbits and hares, rats and mice, and voles, although it freely hunts any animal it can overtake, including rodents and other small mammals, larger mid-sized mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates. In ornithological study, the great horned owl is often compared to the Eurasian eagle-owl, a closely related species, which despite the latter's notably larger size, occupies the same ecological niche in Eurasia, and the red-tailed hawk, with which it often shares similar habitat, prey, and nesting habits by day, thus is something of a diurnal ecological equivalent. The great horned owl is one of the earliest nesting birds in North America, often laying eggs weeks or even months before other raptorial birds.
The ferruginous hawk, Buteo regalis, is a large bird of prey and belongs to the broad-winged buteo hawks. An old colloquial name is ferrugineous rough-leg, due to its similarity to the closely related rough-legged hawk.
Franklin's gull is a small gull. The genus name Leucophaeus is from Ancient Greek leukos, "white", and phaios, "dusky". The specific pipixcan is a Nahuatl name for a type of gull.
The blackpoll warbler is a New World warbler. Breeding males are mostly black and white. They have a prominent black cap, white cheeks and white wing bars. The blackpoll breeds in forests of northern North America, from Alaska throughout most of Canada, to the mountains of New York and New England. They are a common migrant through much of North America. In fall, they fly south to the Greater Antilles and the northeastern coasts of South America in a non-stop long-distance migration over open water, averaging 2500 km, one of the longest distance non-stop overwater flights ever recorded for a migratory songbird. Rare vagrants to western Europe, they are one of the more frequent transatlantic passerine wanderers.
The northern parula is a small New World warbler. It breeds in eastern North America from southern Canada to Florida.
The grey crow, formerly known as the bare-faced crow, is about the same size as the Eurasian carrion crow but has somewhat different proportions and quite atypical feather pigmentation during the juvenile phase for a member of this genus.
The blue-winged leafbird is a species of leafbird found in forest and second growth throughout Southeast Asia as far east as Borneo and as far south as southern Sumatra. It previously included Jerdon's leafbird from the Indian Subcontinent, and the Bornean leafbird from northern Borneo as subspecies, but differs from both in measurements and morphology, with Jerdon's lacking any blue to the flight feathers, and Bornean having a distinctive male-like female plumage. The Javan leafbird, which is endemic to Java, was also formerly grouped with the species, but more recent phylogenetic studies have split both. The distribution of the blue-winged and the Bornean leafbird are known to approach each other, but there is no evidence of intergradation.
A shoe size is an indication of the fitting size of a shoe for a person.
Bird flight is the primary mode of locomotion used by most bird species in which birds take off and fly. Flight assists birds with feeding, breeding, avoiding predators, and migrating.
The black-headed grosbeak is a medium-sized, seed-eating bird in the same family as the northern cardinal, the Cardinalidae. It is sometimes considered conspecific with the rose-breasted grosbeak with which it hybridizes on the American Great Plains.
The Nihoa millerbird is a subspecies of the millerbird. It gets its name from its preferred food, the Miller moth. The 5-inch (13 cm) long millerbird has dark, sepia-colored feathers, white belly, and dark beak. Its natural geographic range is limited to the tiny island of Nihoa in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, and it is hoped that birds translocated to Laysan will help to ensure the survival of the species. The Nihoa millerbird is one of the two endemic birds remaining on Nihoa, the other being the Nihoa finch.
The Victoria crowned pigeon is a large, bluish-grey pigeon with elegant blue lace-like crests, maroon breast and red irises. It is part of a genus (Goura) of four unique, very large, ground-dwelling pigeons native to the New Guinea region. The bird may be easily recognized by the unique white tips on its crests and by its deep 'whooping' sounds made while calling. Its name commemorates the British monarch Queen Victoria.
Flight feathers are the long, stiff, asymmetrically shaped, but symmetrically paired pennaceous feathers on the wings or tail of a bird; those on the wings are called remiges, singular remex, while those on the tail are called rectrices, singular rectrix. The primary function of the flight feathers is to aid in the generation of both thrust and lift, thereby enabling flight. The flight feathers of some birds have evolved to perform additional functions, generally associated with territorial displays, courtship rituals or feeding methods. In some species, these feathers have developed into long showy plumes used in visual courtship displays, while in others they create a sound during display flights. Tiny serrations on the leading edge of their remiges help owls to fly silently, while the extra-stiff rectrices of woodpeckers help them to brace against tree trunks as they hammer on them. Even flightless birds still retain flight feathers, though sometimes in radically modified forms.
The Hispaniolan trogon is a species of bird in the family Trogonidae. It is endemic to Hispaniola in the Caribbean. It is one of the only two trogon species found in the Caribbean. It is the national bird of Haiti.
Rock Eagle Effigy Mound is an archaeological site in Putnam County, Georgia, U.S. estimated to have been constructed c. 1000 BC to AD 1000. The earthwork was built up of thousands of pieces of quartzite laid in the mounded shape of a large bird. Although it is most often referred to as an eagle, scholars do not know exactly what type of bird the original builders intended to portray. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) because of its significance. The University of Georgia administers the site. It uses much of the adjoining land for a 4-H camp, with cottages and other buildings, and day and residential environmental education.
Bird measurement or bird biometrics are approaches to quantify the size of birds in scientific studies. The measurements of the lengths of specific parts and the weights of birds varies between species, populations within species, between the sexes and depending on age and condition. In order for measurements to be useful, they need to be well defined so that measurements taken are consistent and comparable with those taken by others or at other points of time. Measurements can be useful to study growth, variation between geographically separated forms, identify differences between the sexes, age or otherwise characterize individuals birds. While certain measurements are regularly taken in the field to study living birds some others are applicable only to specimens in the museum or measurable only in a laboratory. The conventions used for measurement can vary widely between authors and works, making comparisons of sizes a matter that needs considerable care.
The Pincoya storm petrel is a sea bird of the storm petrel family. The specific name commemorates the Pincoya, a female water spirit of the Chilote mythology. After being first brought to the attention of the world from photographs taken by Seamus Enright and Michael O'Keeffe in 2009 this species was finally formally discovered and examined in 2011 and scientifically described in 2013. It is known "only from waters near Chiloé Island, Chile".
 | This bird-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |