Birds

• A bird requires more food in proportion to its size than a baby or a cat.
  


• A woodpecker can peck twenty times a second.
  


• An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
  


• By feeding hens certain dyes they can be made to lay eggs with varicolored yolks.
  


• Hummingbirds are the smallest birds - so tiny that one of their enemies is an insect, the praying mantis.
  


• It takes forty minutes to hard boil an ostrich egg.
  


• Lovebirds are small parakeets who live in pairs. Male and female lovebirds look alike, but most other male birds have brighter colors than the females.
  


• Mockingbirds can imitate any sound from a squeaking door to a cat meowing.
  


• Owls have eyeballs that are tubular in shape, because of this, they cannot move their eyes.
  


• Pet parrots can eat virtually any common "people-food" except for chocolate and avocados. Both of these are highly toxic to the parrot and can be fatal.
  


• The bones of a pigeon weigh less than its feathers.
  


• The fastest bird is the Spine-tailed swift, clocked at speeds of up to 220 miles per hour.
  


• The hummingbird is the only bird that can hover and fly straight up, down, or backward
  


• The male penguin incubates the single egg laid by his mate. During the two month period he does not eat, and will lose up to 40% of his body weight.
  


• The turkey was named for what was wrongly thought to be its country of origin.