Beak vs. Food

Investigating Bird Beak Adaptations

TThe shape of a bird’s beak is adapted to allow the bird to eat its preferred food source found in its habitat. The beaks of fish eaters have pouches, spears, or hooks to catch and carry their food. Invertebrate eaters have spatula-like bills for skimming the water or long thin bills for plunging in the mud for worms. Meat eaters have hooked bills to rip prey apart. Nut eaters have heavy bills with thick bases to crack open nuts. Insect eaters have tweezer-like bills to probe for and pick up prey and nectar eaters have long, thin bills with long tongues to collect flower nectar. Some birds, such as gulls, crows, and chickens, do not have a specified beak shape, which allows them to eat a varied diet. These birds are known as generalists and are more likely to survive when a habitat is changed.

Objective: Demonstrate the connection between beak shape and the ability to access food. This activity will investigate how adaptations allow organisms to survive in their environment.

Safety Alert: Handle pointed utensils with care. Do not consume any food items used in this activity.

Beak Type: ______

Procedure

  1. Gather around one feeding station with your beak type as assigned by your teacher.
  2. All members will attempt to eat the “food” at the station for 30 seconds. As you pick up each piece, place it in your paper cup. Rules: You must hold the beak in one hand and the cup in the other. You may not use the cup to scoop “food”. Each beak can only pick up one piece of food at a time.
  3. Read the specific rules at each station before beginning.
  4. At the teacher’s signal, begin picking up food at your station.
  5. After 30 seconds (at the teacher’s stop signal), count the pieces of “food” in your cup.
  6. Record that number in Table 1.
  7. Place the pieces of food from your cup back in the container at the station.
  8. You will complete three trials at each station following steps 4-6 above.
  9. Find the average of your three trials for each station.

Table 1

Feeding Station (Biome) / Trial 1 / Trial 2 / Trial 3 / Average
Grassland
Desert
Wetland
Temperate Deciduous Forest

Conclusion

  1. Which biome was best suited for your beak type?
    ______
  2. How do you explain the differences between the amounts of food “eaten” at each station and the various “beak” types?

______
______


  1. Using the diagram above, describe what type of food you think each bird eats and why.

a. ______
b. ______

c. ______

d. ______

e. ______

f. ______

g. ______

h. ______

i. ______