Billboard : Bills of a different kind !!!

There are said to be approximately around 10,000 species of bird known to man as of today ! Everyday a new species is being discovered, but the same time a few are being relegated to the endangered list and a few of them are declared extinct. But the number has been staggering around this for sometime.

But 10,000 sure is a huge number and naming each one of it is indeed an interesting task.

Ha ! hold on, I had friends in school who were called as apple, bun, caterpillar, long arm, 3/4 and a lot of names that couldn’t be recollected. You guessed it right !. These were anointments based on some striking characteristics of my friends…one had a round nose : hence “apple”, another had a small smart pot belly : hence “bun”, another fellow had a tough bristle like moustache, hence “caterpillar” so on and so forth.

Yeah , yeah..coming to birds now.

Birds are named as well as classified based on many factors, some according to their antecedents, some based on their habitats, some based on their physical characteristics and the list is huge.

Just thought that it would be fun to set a list of birds named based on their “Bills“ form and function. Yes  , beaks to say so !.

Come, let us see how much we can list…

1. Hornbill ( that was easy )
2. Spoon bill
3. Open bill ( poor fellow )
4. Ivory bill
5. Cross bill
6. Shoe bill
7. Frog mouth
8. Dusky-tailed flat bill
9. Bamboo flat bill
10. Sword-billed hummingbird (Oops !!! )
11. Yellow-billed loon
12. Long-billed dowitcher
13. Short-billed dowitcher
14. Gull billed Tern ( this is nice !!! )
15. Wry bill
16. White tipped Sickle bill
17. Black Sickle bill
18. Broad bill
19. Razor bill
20. Thorn bill
21. Keel bill toucan ( when bills are being talked about, how can toucans be missed ? !)
22. Indian Silver bill

Phew !!! that was a good list !! But, there might be more “bills” strewn over, we shall build this list still further as we stumble upon.

It would be interesting to list more “tails”, “wings” and so on.  We shall do that in due course.

In the mean while, it is tax time around, don’t misplace your paper bills.

Bye folks !, Take care.

3 Other birds.