Birds Facts

Owl Facts

The Barn Owls hearing is so highly developed that they can hunt for their prey in total darkness.

The world's smallest owl is the elf owl which weighs 1.5 ounces and is the size of a sparrow.

Owls swallow their prey hole because they have no teeth. After approximately 12 hours they cough up the feathers, bones, and fur in a shape of a football pellet.

Owls have no teeth.

Male owls weigh less and are smaller than female owls


Parrots Facts

Some species of the parrot have become endangered. Thousands are brought to Europe and North America as pets. Many of these die making this journey.

Parrots have a wide range of articulations. Wild parrots do not imitate. Only pets will mimic people and noises they hear. The African gray parrots are the best mimics.

Parrots are hole nesters. They build their nests in holes in trees, termite mounts, rock cavities, or ground tunnels. A few exceptions will build stick nests.

More than 90 percent of the parrots imported into the United States are probably wild caught.

It is thought that two million parrots alone are legally or illegally traded each year.
More than 1.8 million parrots legally entered the international trade from 1982-1988 of which 80 percent were imported into the United States.

Recent figures suggest that 40 percent of these species are threatened primarily by habitat destruction, 17 percent primarily by trade, 36 percent by a combination of the two causes and 7 percent by other factors.

At least 30 percent of the 140 parrot species found in the Western Hemisphere are now threatened with extinction.

An additional 25,000 parrots die of suffocation, starvation, inhumane treatment while being transported to the Texas border.

Bats Facts

Bats always turn left when they leave their caves.

Frog-eating bats identify edible frogs from poisonous ones by listening to the mating calls of male frogs. Frogs counter this by hiding and using short, difficult to locate calls.

Bats sleep during the day and feed at night. The place that bats sleep in is called the "roost."

Bats emit ultrasonic sounds to communicate with each other.

Bats always turn left when exiting a cave.

African heart-nosed bats can have such a keen sense of sound that they can hear the footsteps of a beetle walking on sand from six feet away.

Giant flying foxes, which are a type of bat, that live in Indonesia have wingspans of nearly six feet.

Hummingbirds Facts

Hummingbirds cannot become addicted to the nectar you put out in your feeder. They will leave the feeders when they need to.

Hummingbirds eat both nectar and the small insects found near the nectar.

Although male hummers are more colorful than female hummers, female hummingbirds are relatively colorful.

Hummingbirds have split tongues, which they fold into a tube when feeding.

Normal flight speed for a hummingbird is 25 to 30 mph, but hummers can dive at speeds of up to 60 mph.

It takes hummingbird eggs two to 2 1/2 weeks to hatch.

Hummingbird eggs are so small that a penny would completely cover three of them. The usual brood, however, is two eggs.

Hummingbird nests average about 1-1/2 inches in outside diameter. A penny will almost fill the inside diameter.

Only ten species of hummers have significant ranges north of Mexico. Only the ruby-throated hummingbird ranges east of the Mississippi.

In the eighteenth century, when Swedish naturalist Carolus Linnaeus devised the scientific classification system still in use today (kingdom, phylum, class, order and family) hummingbirds were assigned their own family: Trochilidae, from the Greek trochilos, meaning small bird.

When early Spanish explorers encountered hummingbirds they called them Joyas voladoras, flying jewels.

Hummingbirds are native to South America.

Adult female Ruby-throated Hummingbirds are 15-20% larger than adult males.

The only bird that can fly backwards is the Hummingbird.

A hummingbird's heart beats 615 beats in a minute.

Hummingbirds flap their wings between 50 and 70 times a second