Bird-Spotting Science: Predicting a Bird’s Lifestyle Based on its Feet

• Unless you’re going to a zoo or pet store, you’ll want a bird field guide book to identify birds in your area.  Alternatively, you could use online resources to identify the birds you see.
• A place to observe birds.  This could be your backyard (especially if you have a bird feeder or birdbath), a park, a field, a forest, a beach, an aviary at a zoo, a pet store, or a farm that has different types of birds.
• Binoculars. Inexpensive ones are fine.  These are only needed if you will be watching birds from a distance.
• Sheet of paper
• Pen or pencil

1. Get ready to do some bird watching.  Unless you’re going to a zoo or pet store, have a local bird field guide book ready, or have access to an online resource, so you can identify local birds.  A good online resource you could use is eNature.com. 

1. Bring a sheet of paper, a pen or pencil, and a bird field guide book (or access to an online resource) to one of the bird-observation places you decided on.  If needed, also bring binoculars.  Observe the birds there.  (Be sure to have an adult accompany you.)  What kind of birds do you see?
2. Identify the different species of birds you see.  (If you are at a zoo, pet store, or other place where the species of birds are labeled or simple to identify, this’ll be easy.)  Use a field guide book or online resource to do this.
3. What species of birds do you see? On your sheet of paper, write their names down.  
4. Look at the feet of each species of bird.  What type of feet do they have?  Write down one of the following seven types of feet for each species: 
• Climbing: Two toes in front, two toes in back
• Swimming: Webbed feet
• Running: Strong-legged with two or three thick toes, all facing forward
• Perching: Three toes in front, one toe in back
• Grasping: Claw-like feet with curved talons
• Scratching: Four toes, all with strong nails for digging into the ground
• Wading: Long, thin legs and toes
5. Tip: If it is difficult to clearly see any bird’s feet, you could look for pictures of the bird that more clearly show their feet (such as in a field guide book or in pictures online).
6. Try to make observations for at least 5 species of bird.  The more you observe, the better your results should be!
7. Based only on the type of feet each bird has, predict what kind of lifestyle you think that type of bird has.  In other words, where do you think it spends most of its time?  Is it usually perched in a tree, climbing trees, on the ground, or swimming in the water?
8. Do some research on each species of bird to find out where it actually spends its time.  To do this, you could use a bird field guide book or online resources.  (Again, you could use the <a href="http://www.enature.com/fieldguides/intermediate.asp?curGroupID=1">eNature.com</a> website or other resources listed in the “More to explore” section on the next page.)  You’ll want to look into where each bird nests, roosts (or sleeps), and forages (or gets food).  Where does each bird spend most of its time?
9. Based on your results, how accurate an indicator was each bird’s foot type for the kind of lifestyle it usually leads?  

Extra: In this activity, you looked at the general lifestyle of a bird, but there are many aspects that go into a bird’s lifestyle, such as where they nest, where they roost, and how they get food.  Pick one of these aspects and investigate again how well the bird’s foot type is as an indicator of that part of its lifestyle.  How good is a bird’s foot type at, for example, predicting how it gets its food?

Extra: Try this activity again but this time compare the birds’ beaks instead of their feet.  How well can a bird’s beak be used to predict their lifestyle, and/or specifically what they eat? Do birds with different types of beaks eat different things?  

Extra: Pick two diverse habitats, like the beach and a forest, and investigate the species of birds in those areas.  Do birds in the same habitat have similar types of feet?  How about birds in different habitats?