On average, a mammal has a brain roughly twice as large as that of a bird of the same body size, and ten times as large as that of a reptile of the same body size.

A recent report ( 2006 ) by the NOAA's Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla, California, indicates that the increased rat presence on Clipperton Island has led to a decline in both crab and bird populations, causing a corresponding increase in both vegetation and coconut palms on the island.

So far, only a single bird species, which has not been named, has been confidently identified from both above and below the K-Pg boundary ( it is present in the Maastrichtian Hell Creek Formation and Danian Fort Union Formation ).

It is because of the scarlet color of cardinals ' vesture that the bird of the same name has become known as such.

Fair Isle has a permanent bird observatory, founded by George Waterston in 1948.

a bird that has a red breast and pinions ".

This has led to an alternative English common name for the bird, " garefowl " or " gairfowl ".

While recent evidence suggesting that American Ivory-billed Woodpeckers may still exist in the wild has caused excitement in the Ornithology community, no similar evidence exists for the Cuban Ivory-billed bird, believed to be extinct since the last sighting in the late 1980s.

The island has three endemic bird species, and two endemic subspecies.

Phosphate — in actuality a resource derived from a 1, 000-year cycle of bird droppings — has been mined on the island since 1906.

An example of the opposite case is " cuckoo ", which, due to continuous familiarity with the bird noise down the centuries, has kept approximately the same pronunciation as in Anglo-Saxon times and its vowels have not changed to as in " furrow ".

The bird has just two toes on each foot ( most birds have four ), with the nail on the larger, inner toe resembling a hoof.

Hybridization with the subspecies that evolved southwestwards of its range, S. c. massaicus, has apparently been prevented from occurring on a significant scale by ecological separation, the Somali Ostrich preferring bushland where it browses middle-height vegetation for food while the Masai Ostrich is, like the other subspecies, a grazing bird of the open savanna and miombo habitat.

Rousay is a ' Site of Special Scientific Interest ' with notable cliff formations and wildflower colonies, and has an RSPB bird reserve.

The GEICO company has created a series of television ads that are built around proverbs, such as " A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush ": and " The pen is mightier than the sword "

Conversely, birds of prey-which show distinct reverse sexual dimorphism — tend to be monogamous for long periods or mate for life ; some species like the Snail kite will choose new mates every year, polygyny is noted in many Harriers and polyandry has been observed in the Harris ' Hawk ( notable for being the only bird of prey to regularly live and hunt in family and social groups ) and the aforementioned Galapagos hawk.

Another etymology that has been proposed is English pigeon, a bird sometimes used for carrying brief written messages, especially in times prior to modern telecommunications.

It has declared several bird sanctuaries including Kumana.

The archipelago has fifteen bird sanctuaries, one geotopic protected area and six nature reserves — with Nordaust-Svalbard and Søraust-Svalbard both being larger than any of the national parks.

While wild cats, dogs, feral pigs, black rats, Polynesian rats and mice are present, the island has no known populations of possums, mustelids ( weasels, stoats or ferrets ), hedgehogs, brown rats or deer, thus being a relative haven for native bird and plant populations.

The study of learning became an area of interest and the study of bird song has been a model for studies in neuro-ethology.

The role of hormones and physiology in the control of behaviour has also been aided by bird models.

The use of bird skins to document species has been a standard part of systematic ornithology.

A bird, once it has detected a bird of prey, calls to signal to the bird of prey that it was detected, and that there is no use trying to attack the calling bird.

Some birds, especially corvids and parrots, are among the most intelligent animal species ; a number of bird species have been observed manufacturing and using tools, and many social species exhibit cultural transmission of knowledge across generations.

Many rare species of bird have been found on the island, and it is probably the best place in western Europe to see skulking Siberian passerines such as Pechora Pipit, Lanceolated Warbler and Pallas's Grasshopper Warbler.

The Great Auk had disappeared from Funk Island by 1800, and an account by Aaron Thomas of HMS Boston from 1794 described how the bird had been systematically slaughtered until then:

A bird that had been associated with Hera on an archaic level, where most of the Aegean goddesses were associated with " their " bird, was the cuckoo, which appears in mythic fragments concerning the first wooing of a virginal Hera by Zeus.

Skeptics dismissed the photos as frauds ; seeing that the bird is in roughly the same position in both photos, they suggested they may have been of a mounted specimen.

There were numerous unconfirmed reports of the bird, but many ornithologists believed the species had been wiped out completely, and it was assessed as " extinct " by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources in 1994.

On the Isle of Man, where she is known as Caillagh ny Groamagh, the Cailleach is said to have been seen on Imbolc in the form of a gigantic bird, carrying sticks in her beak.

Although all sea ducks readily feed on shallow-water molluscs, no Western Atlantic bird species seems to have been as dependent on such food as much as the Labrador Duck.

The Liverpool badge is based on the city's liver bird, which in the past had been placed inside a shield.

Despite being told that the bird is deceased and that it had been nailed to its perch, the proprietor insists that it is " pining for the fjords " or simply " stunned ".

However, some species exhibit sex-role reversed behavior in which it is males that are most selective in mate choice ; the best-known examples of this pattern occur in some fishes of the family Syngnathidae, though likely examples have also been found in amphibian and bird species.

It may have been the most numerous bird on earth in its heyday, and A. W. Schorger believed it accounted for between 25 and 40 percent of the total landbird population in the US.

In 1809 Cuvier published a somewhat longer description, naming the animal, in which he refuted a hypothesis by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach that it would have been a shore bird.

The term " Persian bird " for the cock would appear to been given by the Greeks after Persian contact " because of his great importance and his religious use among the Persians ", but even long before that time, in Iran, during the Kianian Period, from about 2000 B. C.

In a Rabbinical account ( e. g. Targum Sheni ), Solomon was accustomed to ordering the living creatures of the world to dance before him ( Rabbinical accounts say that Solomon had been given control over all living things by Yahweh ), but one day upon discovering that the mountain-cock or hoopoe ( Hebrew name: shade ) was absent, he summoned it to him, and the bird told him that it had been searching for somewhere new.

The barnacle goose, mute swan, whooper swan, eider, shelduck and a great many other bird species have been given protection status.

For there could not have been a first egg to give a beginning to birds, or there should have been a first bird which gave a beginning to eggs ; for a bird comes from an egg.