So, you love birds and you know all of the bird facts there are to know. Maybe you’re right, but maybe you’re wrong.

Unusual Bird Facts

• Penguins, which mate for life, have suborbital glands in their noses that take care of the salt in seawater. This gland turns salt into brine, which leaks out through the birds’ beaks. This not only makes them look as if they have runny noses, it can cause them to sneeze.
• It took fewer than 80 years for the dodo bird to become extinct. Its extinction was more likely caused by other factors than being sailors’ meals. Extinction was more likely the result of deforestation, which also destroyed the wild bird’s food supply, and imported animals that sailors took with them to sea, such as dogs, pigs and rats, which attacked dodo nests for eggs.
• Woodpeckers, which have four toes, two facing forwards and two facing backwards, have a specific flying pattern, two flaps of the wings and then a glide, followed by two flaps of the wings and then a glide, and so forth.
• California condors, one of the most endangered bird species in the United States, don’t have vocal cords. In order to make sounds, these birds must force air through their bodies in order to grunt, growl and hiss. In addition, these scavengers will throw up when frightened and, when adults, can change the color of their skins to reflect their emotions.
• Roadrunners, which are part of the cuckoo family, conserve water by removing excess salt through nasal glands rather disposing salts through their urine and by taking water from their fecal matter before excretion.
• Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, The Birds (1963) is a story of a small town in Northern California that is ominously attacked by birds, including seagulls and crows. The movie starred Tippi Hedren. In 2008, Mattel, Inc. issued a Black Label Barbie to commemorate this film. This doll resembles Tippi Hendren’s character, complete with 1963-style clothing, and, appropriately, the doll is being viciously pecked by several black birds.