In honor of our Bird Hat project last week, here are 15 facts we bet you didn’t know about this fascinating species.
1. Baby robins eat 14 feet of earthworms… every day!
2. Six people can feast on one ostrich egg for breakfast.
3. Flamingos lay their eggs on top of volcano-shaped mud nests.
4. Only male turkeys can gobble; females make a clicking noise.
5. Approximately 2/3 of all the bird species are found in tropical rain forests.
6. In the United States, as many as 3.7 billion birds are killed by cats each year.
7. The bird with the most feathers is the whistling swan, with up to 25,000 feathers.
8. Hummingbirds are so small that they have fewer than 1,000 feathers.
9. Many birds, such as starlings, sing notes too high for humans to hear.
10. A bird’s feathers weigh more than its skeleton.
11. The ostrich is the only bird that willingly takes care of other females’ eggs.
12. The slowest flying bird is the American Woodcock, which can fly at just 5 mph.
13. Birds that are raised for poultry are the largest source of protein eaten by humans.
14. The game Angry Birds has sold more than 7 million copies on Apple’s iPhone.
15. A Bald Eagle is called “bald” because it is piebald (which means black and white), not because it doesn’t have any feathers.
Tell us – what is the craziest bird fact you’ve ever heard?! Comment on our Facebook album.