Bird watching as an alternative to chick hatching

Apr 7, 2000 4:03 PM

CHICK HATCHING

PROS CONS

BIRD CARE VOCABULARY

1. Altricial - born helpless at birth, naked and eyes closed
2. Cere - a fleshy piece across the top of the bill in some birds
3. Courtship - the behavior before mating that binds a pair
4. Crop - a storage place for food before it is digested
5. Cuttlebone - the chalky inside shell of a cuttlefish; provides essential minerals
6. Down - the softest fluffy feathers next to the skin
7. Fledgling - young bird just out of the nest and beginning to fly
8. Flock - a group of birds gathered together
9. Gizzard - organ that grinds food
10. Grit - fine gravel used to grind food in the gizzard
11. Migrate - to travel from one area to another
12. Moult - the process of shedding the old and growing in new feathers
13. Nares - a bird's nostrils
14. Nestling - baby bird who cannot fly and is still in the nest
15. Ornithologist - a person who studies birds
16. Plumage - a bird's entire covering of feathers
17. Precocial - born with down covering and able to walk or run shortly after hatching
18. Preen - what a bird does with its bill to arrange, clean and dress his feathers
19. Primaries - the long flight feathers on a bird's wing, usually nine to twelve in number
20. Rachis - the thick shaft in the center of a feather
21. Rouse - the process of shaking dirt out of the feathers
22. Secondaries - the shorter flight feathers on a bird's wing
23. Stoop - a steep dive when a bird is in flight
24. Territory - an area that one bird or a pair of birds claim as their own
25. Waterfowl - birds that spend most of their time on or in the water; ducks, geese, swans

Reprinted with permission from the MARIN HUMANE SOCIETY, 171 Bel Marin Keys Boulevard, Novato, CA. 94949.