What do birds look like?
Different shapes
Because birds live on every continent and have adapted to all sorts of conditions, different types of birds look very different from each other. The most noticeable differences are the size, the shape of the beak, the length of the legs, the length of the neck and the colour.
The smallest types of birds are tiny birds that feed on nectar, honey and insects. The biggest birds are flightless birds with long legs-- ostriches, emus and cassowaries. However, very large birds are also found soaring high in the sky-- eagles, vultures, albatross and pelicans. The way to understand the living habits of a bird is to look at its legs and feet, its beak, its neck and its wings.
If a bird has very long legs, then it probably spends most of its time walking, like a crane, or wading (walking in water), like a flamingo. Birds with long legs need long necks to match, so they can reach their food. Birds with short legs and long necks like pelicans, geese and swans are birds that swim well and dive their heads into the water for food. Their beaks are often flat for scooping up water weeds. A pelican's beak can change into a shape like a huge bucket for catching fish.
Birds that are shaped like torpedoes are good at diving. Albatross, seagulls and kingfishers all have long strong beaks for catching fish. Some birds, such as eagles, owls vultures and hawks, have beaks which are hooked and very large claws (also called "talons") with which they can tear and carry meat.
Some birds have very long thin beaks that they use for dipping into flowers or poking into holes in the ground. These include hummingbirds, bee eaters and avocets. Some birds have short beaks but wide mouths that are perfect for catching insects in the air, like swallows, swifts and nightjars. Some birds that eat fruit, like toucans and hornbills, have beaks which are enormous, but are very light in weight. The curved beaks of parrots are good for eating large seeds and cracking nuts, while birds that peck small seeds and food from the ground have short beaks like pigeons.
                                           
Different coloursBirds come in a huge range of colours. These colours can be useful to a bird in two ways. The colours can either help to hide the bird, or they can help to attract attention to the bird when it is looking for a mate.
Bird camouflage
Many birds are brown, green or grey. These colours make a bird harder to see; they camouflage the bird. Brown is the most common colour. Brown birds include sparrows, emus, thrushes, larks, eagles, falcons and the female birds of many species such as wrens, ducks, blackbirds and peacocks. When a brown bird is in long grass or among tree trunks or rocks, it is camouflaged. Birds that live in long grass often have brown feathers streaked with black which looks like shadows. A Bittern is almost invisible in long reeds. Other birds, including starlings and minahs, are quite dark in colour, but are flecked with little spots that look like raindrops on leaves.
Many birds from hot countries are green or have some green feathers, particularly parrots. Birds that live in green trees often have green backs, even if they have bright-coloured breasts. From the back, the birds are camouflaged. This is very useful when sitting on a nest. The bird's bright-coloured breast is hidden. Budgerigiars are bred in different colours such as blue, white and mauve, but in the wild, they are nearly all green and yellow. Even though they fly very well, they normally spend a lot of time on the ground, eating grass seeds. Their yellow and black stiped back helps to hide them in the shadows made by long dry grass, while their green breasts are a similar colour to the leaves of gum trees.
Grey birds include most pigeons and doves, cranes, storks and herons. Grey birds are often rock-living birds like pigeons, or birds that sit on dead tree trunks looking like a broken branch. Water birds like herons often have a pale grey colour which makes it harder for a fish to notice that the bird is standing, looking down for something to catch. Water birds, no matter what colour they are on top, are often white underneath, so that when a fish looks up, the bird looks like part of the sky.
Black birds include crows, ravens and male blackbirds. Some birds that are dark colours spend quite a lot of time on the ground, hopping around in the shadows under bushes. Among these birds are the male blackbird and the Satin Bowerbird which is not black but very dark blue. Crows and ravens often perch high on bare trees in the winter, where their black shape against the sky looks like the dark bare branches.