Wild About Birds

What is something all birds have in common?

• They have webbed feet.

• They have feathers.

• They are birds of prey.

• They migrate every year.

What does this text describe?

• This text describes the difference between the way scientists identify birds and the way birdwatchers identify birds.

• This text describes the reason why some birds cannot fly.

• This text describes the unique characteristics of different types of birds and how one would begin to identify different bird species.

• This text describes the migratory patterns of some birds and the way they raise their young in one area and live in another area.

Some birds are migratory birds.

What evidence from the text supports this statement?

• Perching birds are the birds you see flying over city streets, flitting through the trees, sitting in a row on a telephone line, or looking for insects or seeds in the grass.

• Some birds move between the place they raise their young and another place where they spend the rest of the year.

• Owls, hawks, falcons, and eagles are birds of prey—birds that hunt other animals by seizing them with their powerful feet and sharp talons.

• All birds have feathers, two legs, and a beak, of course, but once you really start noticing birds, you’ll be amazed by their variety.

Based on the information in the text, if you saw a bird flying over city streets, what kind of bird would this most likely be?

• a penguin

• a raptor

• an ostrich

• a songbird

What is the main idea of this text?

• A lot of people try to identify every kind of bird they see and keep a list of all the different bird species they've ever spotted.

• Sometimes it’s easy to identify a species of bird, and sometimes it can be hard to tell two species apart because they look so much alike.

• There are about 10,500 species of birds in the world and they all have unique characteristics such as size, shape, color, eating habits, and location preferences.

• Scientists like to group birds into categories. Two of these groups are raptors, or or birds of prey, and perching birds, or songbirds.