Bird Mania Trivia Quiz

Answer: About 800

Even though many species of animals have become extinct in the wild, not many bird species have become extinct since the industrial era. There are around 500 species of birds that mainly live on Australia's mainland and about 260 on the islands surrounding it.
Birds that are found in Australia and its nearby seas are known as seabirds.
Birds that are considered seabirds include;
albatrosses, petrels, shearwaters (muttonbirds), boobies, gannets and cormorants.
Out of the 760 species of seabirds in Australia, over 200 of these species are protected by the EPBC act. Under this act you can be faced with serious consequences if you hurt seabirds in any way, keep, or move these creatures away from their natural habitat.
Many seabirds, especially albatrosses and petrels have long life spans compared to most other birds. Albatrosses and petrels have been known to live for over 50 years. Seabirds have adapted to life at the sea by the way that their wings have changed over time, salt glands are another example of how seabirds have adapted to life at the sea.
Over 80% of seabirds feed on the surface of the ocean to catch things such as fish, krill and squid. Other seabirds use different methods of catching their food such as pursuit diving which is often used by penguins and diving petrels as well as some cormorants. Plunge diving is the method that is often used by Boobies and gannets which involves the bird diving into the water from flight.

Answer: About 10000

Many of these species live in the jungles in South America. Most birds prefer to live in the warmer parts of the world but migrate when the conditions become unfavourable.
Around 500 species of the 8800 species of birds are considered endangered.
Any harming of birds, especially endangered ones can result in imprisonment and hefty fines in some countries.

Answer: True

Birds are often a lot more active than most mammals because some species of birds migrate, this requires them to travel long distances so have had to adapt to this and their way of adapting is to improve its amount of carbon dioxide that it releases. Some species of birds travel thousands of kilometres migrating, and burn a lot of energy doing so.

Answer: 1000 km

Larger birds can travel up to twice this distance. An example of a migrating bird is the Mutton bird or shear-tailed shearwater, which travels from Australia around Mutton Bird Island and travels to parts of Asia.
The Mutton bird as an adult has a wing span of around 1 metre. Mutton birds are also known for their great swimming ability.
The Mutton bird is the most plentiful of Australian seabirds having a total population of around 25-30 million birds.
The earliest recordings of bird migration were observed 3000 years ago at the time of Homer who was believed to have been the author of the Ancient Greek poems the Iliad and the Odyssey.

Answer: Crocodiles

Crocodiles and birds alike are in the group Archosauria. The other animals are not in this group; butterflies are the second closest to birds out of the animals in the choices given.

Answer: Swift

The swift is one of the lightest birds in existence. The pelican, bustard and swan can weigh over 50 times more than the swift.
These small birds (especially the ones in the temperate regions) are migratory.
The smallest species of swift is the pygmy swiftlet that usually weighs about 5-6 grams and is about 10cm long, while the largest the purple needletail weighs around 180-200 grams and measuring at around 25cm long.
Swifts scientific family name is "apous" which means "without feet" as swifts are aerial birds that hardly ever settle on the ground. Swifts are even known to mate whilst flying.

Answer: 1 kg

The Little penguin lives up to its name: it is the lightest of all penguins in weight. This penguin is just a fraction smaller than the Fairy penguin.
This penguin usually grows to around 45cm tall.
The Little penguin's upper body is distinctly blue in colour and its underbelly is white.
In New Zealand little penguins are known as little blue penguins because of their colour. The little penguin feeds mostly on fish, squid and other small sea animals. This species of penguin has a lifespan of around 6-7 years although some have been recorded to live for over 20 years.

Answer: False

Adult albatrosses desert their well-grown chicks. The chicks must lose weight before they can fly off on their own.
Albatrosses belong in the family Diomedeidae.
Albatrosses live in the Southern and the North Pacific ocean, although fossils that have been found of albatrosses in other parts of the world.
The albatross is well known for its extremely large wingspan, especially the "Great Albatrosses" wingspan which can exceed 340cms.
This bird is extremely efficient when flying in the air because it uses dynamic soaring which is a flying technique that enables the bird to gain kinetic energy. This bird also uses slope soaring which is a type of flying which allows the bird to maintain its altitude.
Many species of albatrosses are threatened with extinction because of introduced species of animals, by pollution and feather harvesting.
An albatross' diet is mainly comprised of molluscs, fish and crustaceans although some species may only eat 1 of these foods.

Answer: By throwing a stone at them with its beak.

The rocks it picks up with its beak are usually about 3-5 cm in diameter. Sometimes this bird flies a few metres above the eggs then drops a rock onto them to crack them open.
The black-breasted buzzard is a large bird of prey that has a wing length of around 40-50cms with the females wingspan being larger than the males.
This bird is known to live in deserts, grasslands and woodlands.
The black-breasted buzzard is known to eat rabbits, medium to large sized lizards, smaller birds, road kill and the eggs of other birds.

Answer: White

Unlike other birds that have speckled eggs, a parrot always has white eggs.
These eggs aren't usually as hard as other birds' eggs such as magpies, kookaburras etc.
There are currently around 350 species of parrots, most of them living in warm tropical areas such as South America.
These birds are often one of the most popular choices amoungst people looking for a pet bird.
Parrots are well known to humans by their ability to copy human voices that it hears, the best parrot being the African Grey Parrot which some studies believe that this bird can associate words with their meanings.
The diet of a parrot usually is comprised of seeds, nuts, bulbs, fruits and small insects.