BIRDS

We can admire flamingos or laugh at them (and we often do both), so we may as well learn something about them.

Just over a century ago, the world’s last passenger pigeon died at Ohio’s Cincinnati Zoo on September 1. The extinction set off a worldwide bird conservation movement.

The bearded vulture, or lammergeier, is one intense bird. It lives on a steady diet of bones and dyes its feathers blood red, giving it the reputation of one of the most metal birds in the animal kingdom.

In the 1990s, the fly Philornis downsi was accidentally introduced to the Galapagos Islands, probably in a shipment of fruit. The adult flies are harmless enough as invaders go, but their kids are a real problem for the islands’ native birds, some of whic

Next time someone tries to put you down by calling you "bird brain," make them think again by introducing them to these 11 wickedly smart avians.

If you’re going to teach Polly how to talk, you’d better watch what you say! Here are nine of the world’s most “fowl”-mouthed avians.

There’s only one thing in this world shaped like an egg. Not exactly spherical, not exactly an oval, it’s kind of hard to describe what an egg looks like. “Asymmetric tapered oval”? Sure, why not.

If you live in any U.S. city, you probably think those pesky, puke-eating pigeons and their feathered friends are pretty brain dead. Don’t be fooled. Birds are capable of some pretty amazing feats, and we’ve provided a sampling below.

Animal smugglers have some serious baggage.

The United States Marines have their bulldogs and the Army has their mules, but the Norwegian Royal Guard has a mascot a little more accustomed to colder temperatures: Nils Olav, a King Penguin who is also a Colonel-in-Chief and a knight.