All animals have adaptations to help them feed, escape or aid in reproduction. A white-tailed buck, for instance, has antlers needed basically for the breeding season. In contrast, birds have specialized bills necessary for them to find and/or eat food every day.

A cardinal, a bird familiar to almost everyone, has a large, short bill designed to help it crush open seeds (often your feeder’s sunflower seeds) but not to capture insects. Meanwhile, a warbler or vireo has a thinner bill to help it pluck an insect from the underside of a leaf or one in flight. Wading birds, such as great blue herons, green herons or common egrets have long, spear­like bills. They use them to either impale a fish or deftly snatch an unsuspecting one from under the water’s surface. No bird bills are designed to chew any food. Birds have crops to store food temporarily, and the grit (sand/pebbles) in their gizzards grinds it before it passes to the stomach.

Hawks, owls and eagles have sharp hooked bills to allow them to tear through fur, skin or feathers. Then they are used to tear the prey into pieces small enough to swallow. Compare their bills to those of hummingbirds.

Hummingbirds have very thin, long bills to enable them to reach flowers’ nectaries to locate the energy-rich nectar they need to survive. Their bills are also extremely lightweight so these tiny birds can fly.

I’ll point out a few specialists that have “neat” bill adaptations. From north of our border, two different species of crossbills sometimes venture into our area in winter. These birds actually have curved, overlapping bills that they insert into the scales of pine cones. They can actually pry open the scales to reach the pines’ seeds. Ruddy turnstones, as the name implies, actually have a slightly upturned bill to assist them in flipping over tiny pebbles or broken shells on a beach to uncover the insects or crustaceans there. Mergansers and grebes, types of diving ducks, have bills lined with teethlike projections to help them grasp and then hold on to very slippery fish.

Woodpeckers have very hard pointed bills. These bills are either used as chisels to dig open a tree trunk or drill into the trunks. Fortunately for many bird species, the woodpeckers’ powerful bills result in many very helpful nesting cavities being excavated and then they are available for these other songbirds to be used for nests.

One unique bill adaptation is that of a black skimmer. This backwater and bay inhabitant has a lower bill much longer than the upper. It flies very close to the water surface with the lower bill just skimming the surface where it flips up minnows or small crustaceans to eat. Although not common today, they are very “neat” to watch as they course back and forth across a bay.

Birds don’t have fingers or opposable thumbs like humans, but they have adapted bills to act as their tools for survival: and they are in such varied forms.

Nature/safety reminder: It is getting very close to deer breeding season, so be particularly alert for deer crossing the roads at almost any time of the day.

Test Your Outdoor Knowledge: The _____owl may breed at different times of a year, not only in spring. A. barn owl, B. barred owl, C. screech owl, D. saw whet owl.

Last Week’s Trivia Answer: Witch hazel, a common local shrub, blooms with yellow flowers in the fall as its leaves are dropping.

Contact Barry Reed at breed71@gmail.com.