Hares and rabbits are very important in the balance of nature. They are food for thousands of predators, foxes, owls, hawks, snakes, weasels, coyotes, bobcats and many others. Consequently the hares are in constant danger, and only a small percentage of them live for longer than a year. They have no means of defence, although a mother hare will try to fight to protect her young. They can run very fast and sometimes escape from enemies in this way. The jackrabbit of western United States (which is really a hare) has been clocked at a speed of forty miles an hour. It can make twenty- foot leaps, too. Jackrabbits are perhaps the fastest of all the hares.

During the day hares spend most of their time resting in “forms” on their territory. These “forms”are just favourite sitting places where the hare feels protected—in a log, or a brush pile, or sometimes in the open. In the evening and during the night the hares feed. They are vegetarians and will eat almost all kinds of plants. One of the most interesting hares of North America is the varying hare. It is also called the snowshoe rabbit because of its furred feet, with which it can walk easily on snow. During the winter this hare has thick white fur. Only its ear tips are black. However in the spring it begins shedding its white fur, and its brown summer coat starts coming in. By midsummer it is completely brown. In the fall it begins turning white again. These colour changes make it much harder for its enemies to see the varying hare in its natural habitat.

Varying hares mate in early spring and the young are born in about a month. The average size of the litter is four. The mother does not prepare a nest for them. During the day she stays near them, but she nurses them only at night. Within a few weeks they are eating grass, and are weaned when they are about a month old. They mate for the first time when they are a year old. Varying hares may weigh as much as four pounds and be as long as eighteen inches.

Another hare which changes colour with the seasons is the large Arctic hare. It may weigh up to twelve pounds in Alaska, where the largest ones are found. Arctic hares provide food for many of the animals of the Arctic, including the bears, the snowy owls and the foxes, as well as for the Eskimos.

Hares Pictures

Of the fourteen species of albatrosses in the world, nine live entirely within the southern hemisphere. There they are found chiefly in the region between 300 and 60° south latitude where there are strong prevailing west winds. Albatrosses depend on winds not only to help them take off but also for sustained flight. On calm days these big birds are almost unable to take off and usually stay on the surface of the water.

Albatrosses have followed ships in southern waters since the early days of exploration in the seventeenth century. Sailors call the larger species gooney birds and the smaller ones mollymawks. Sometimes an albatross will accidentally land on the deck of a ship and for a time be unable to take flight. If it is approached by a man, it will disgorge a jet of yellow oil from its mouth, apparently in an attempt to defend itself. Most albatrosses nest on remote islands, usually in colonies. The males arrive first and begin occupying their territories. When the first females come, each is surrounded by several male birds. The males in turn, bow and spread their wings. After all have finished, the female selects her mate and goes off to the nesting site with him. Then  disgorge a jet of yellow oil from its mouth, apparently in an attempt to defend itself.

Most albatrosses nest on remote islands, usually in colonies. The males arrive first and begin occupying their territories. When the first females come, each is surrounded by several male birds. The males in turn, bow and spread their wings. After all have finished, the female selects her mate and goes off to the nesting site with him. Then the paired birds begin their courtship displays, nibbling at each other’s feathers, throwing their heads up, stretching out their wings and occasionally braying.

Nests are used year after year although not by the same pairs. Some species build nests of mud and grasses on the ground. The male brings the material in his beak to the female and she arranges it into a small cone-shaped nest. Eventually she lays a single white egg which both parents take turns incubating for seventy to eighty days depending on the species. When the young albatross finally hatches, it is covered with down. It is fed by its father and mother for a long period; for example, young of the largest albatrosses stay in the nest for eight months. Only then are they fully feathered and able to fly.

Once the young birds leave the nest they spend their next few years on the ocean. When they are fully mature, they join the other breeding albatrosses on islands. The wandering albatross is the largest. It has an eleven-foot wing spread and is about four feet long. One of the most common albatrosses of the southern hemisphere is the blackbrowed albatross, which has a wing spread of seven and a half feet. These birds nest on many islands, including the Falkiands. Sealers and whalers used to raid their nests for eggs, as they did many other colonies of nesting albatrosses. Most albatrosses are grey and white or black and white, but two species, the sooty and light-mantled sooty, are brownish-grey. The sooties do not nest in colonies but in pairs in hidden spots on cliffs on subantarctic islands. The Laysan and the black-footed albatrosses nest on islands in the Pacific.

Albatrosses Pictures

Most boobies tend to nest in colonies. It is thought that those living below the equator nest between October and April, although being tropical birds, they may also have no definite nesting season. The adult males usually arrive at the future nesting sites first and pick a territory. The females soon follow, and each accepts a particular male as her mate. Most boobies mate for life and the pair bond is strong.

Boobies generally nest on the ground, although a few species build crude nests in trees. A common display among them is for the male to offer the female a twig or pebble for the nest. Other ceremonies may include mutual neck preening and an uptilting of heads. Their cries on the nesting grounds are described as trumpeting and whistling. Most boobies raise only one young each season, although they may lay two or more eggs. Both the female and the male incubate the eggs and care for the young birds. The young booby is almost nude when it first comes out of the egg, but within a short time it is covered with white down. Both parents feed their offspring, at first with regurgitated food and later with small, whole fish.

During the first days of its life the young booby is’ shielded from the hot, tropical sun by its brooding parents. Later, however, the parents leave it for ever-increasing periods of time. Soon the young bird loses its down, and in about four to six months its first plumage of mottled brown and white feathers comes in. At last it is ready to take off to sea and fish for itself.

The young boobies wander far from their nesting sites and may travel thousands of miles. During each moult their feathers become closer to the colours of the adult plumage. Finally, after from three to five years they return to their ancestral grounds to mate.

Boobies are expert fishers. They fly above the water until they sight a fish. Then with wings closed or half-closed, they dive often from heights of fifty feet or more. They can swim underwater, using both their wings and feet. They eat the fish underwater, rather than returning to shore with it.  Boobies tend to feed in small flocks in the early morning and in the late afternoon. During bright moonlit nights they may fly all night. They are often harassed by frigatebirds which make them regurgitate the fish they have been lucky enough to catch.

Boobies Pictures

Some gulls also eat clams and other shell fish. However, they are not able to open the shells with theft beaks, so they have devised an ingenious method of getting the creatures which live inside. The birds pick up the clams in their beaks and fly over a beach, or a concrete road or even a parking lot, and drop the clam. The shell breaks and the gull swoops down and eats the clam.

Most gulls are seen near shore. They will follow ships for a short distance to see if garbage might be discarded, but will turn back before they are too far out to sea. Only the kittiwake, one of the smaller gulls, is known to travel long distances at sea. It seems to follow the fishing fleets. Kittiwakes banded in England have been found later in Newfoundland on the North American coast.

Gulls are sociable birds and nest in colonies with other gulls and even with other sea birds such as terns, puffins and cormorants. However, if a nest is left unattended in such colonies, the gulls will eat the eggs and young of the other birds. Gulls usually lay two or three brown speckled eggs in a nest of seaweed on an isolated beach or on an uninhabited small rocky island. The young are covered with mottled brown down and are able to run about from the time they hatch, but stay near the nesting site for a month or more. If the baby gulls make the mistake of wandering into a neighboring gull’s nest, they are apt to be killed.

It takes the larger species of gulls about three years to get their adult grey and white, black and white, or all white plumage. Before that time they have flecked brown and white feathers and look very different from adult birds. With each succeeding year their plumage gets lighter in colour, so that it is possible to tell the approximate age of young birds.

If gulls can stay alive during the first year of their lives, they often live for many years. There is a record of one banded herring gull that lived in the wild for twenty-eight years. There are forty-three species of gulls in the world and they range in size from eleven inches to thirty-two inches. The great black- backed gull is one of the largest, as is the nearly white glaucous gull. Both species are found in the northern hemisphere.

Perhaps the most commonly seen gull is the herring gull. It is a large gull, measuring about twenty-six inches in length. It has a grey back and black wing tips. Along the West Coast of the United States the common gull is the California gull. It looks rather like a small herring gull but it has greenish legs, instead of pinkish. The California gull is immortalized by a monument in Salt Lake City. When the Mormons first settled in Utah, a plague of crickets descended on their crops. These insects were eaten by flocks of California gulls, and enough of the crop was saved to see the Mormons through the next year. To show their gratitude the Mormons had a statue made of the California gull.

Another species of gulls which may be found far inland from the sea is the small black-headed Franklin gull. During the summer months it lives in the interior parts of the United States, nesting in marsh areas. At the time of ploughing Franklin gulls often follow the plough, scratching up uncovered insects. However, in the autumn these gulls migrate south and spend the winter in salt water along the Gulf Coast.

Two gulls nest on the Galapagos Islands, the swallow-tailed and the dusky. However, during the time when it is not nesting, the swallow-tailed gull makes a long trip over the sea to the coasts of Ecuador and Peru; the dusky gull, on the other hand, is seldom This bird nests on many of the Galapagos Islands and possibly on other small islands to the north. A single egg is laid from which hatches a downy chick. The young gulls are sometimes eaten by the Galapagos hawks.

The dusky gull is a greyish-brown bird. Like many other animals of the Galapagos it is exceedingly friendly to and curious about men who come to these islands. Dusky gulls nest all through the year but are very secretive about their nesting sites. Their main food seems to be small crustaceans.

Gulls Pictures

Parrots are found in tropical regions around the world. There are over three hundred species that range in size from about four inches to about forty inches. The smallest are the pygmy parrots of New Guinea. The largest are the macaws of Central and South America, and their total length includes their very long tails. Macaws are often seen in zoos. They have raucous cries and are seldom still during the day. Their beaks are so strong they can crack Brazil nuts with them. They do not talk as well as some of the other parrots, but they are very colourful with their green, red, yellow and blue feathers. In their native homes they are said to travel in pairs rather than in flocks, as do so many other members of the parrot family.

The best talker is supposed to be the African grey parrot. It is a handsome bird with grey feathers on its body and deep red feathers on its rather short tail. It has pale grey eyes. This is probably the bird that was a favourite with the Romans. The best talkers of the New World parrots are the amazons from Central and South America. They are usually green with touches of red or yellow somewhere on their bodies. They have short tails and sturdy bodies. If they are trained when they are still young they can often acquire a good vocabulary of words and even whole phrases. Of course, they do not understand what they say, but merely imitate the sounds of the human who teaches them.

Many families have a small parakeet, the budgerigar, as a pet. These little birds originally come from Australia where they are often found in flocks like sparrows. They eat seeds. They do well in captivity and an occasional budgie may even learn a few words. Originally they were green birds with some yellow and blue feathers, but in captivity selective breeding has produced blue, white, and even mauve birds. In England there are special budgerigar shows each year with prizes given for colour and form.

Other parro ‘s from Australia include the handsome cockatoos. They are big birds and have crests on their heads. Like the macaws they are not especially good talkers but are kept in zoos because of their beauty. In their homeland they travel in noisy flocks.The rainbow lorikeets, found in Australia and the East Indies, have tongues that are especially adapted for getting nectar from flowers. These birds first crush the flowers and then lap up the nectar. They travel in large flocks.

One of the most unusual parrots is the owl parrot of New Zealand. It has lost the power of flight and is now rare because so many have been killed by predatory animals brought into New Zealand by settlers. This parrot is about twenty inches long and is yellow, green, black and brown. The owl parrot is mainly active at night in the beech forests where it lives. During the day it sleeps under the roots of frees or in cracks in rocks. It climbs trees to find its food—fruits and leaves—and when it has finished eating it spreads its wings and glides down.

These birds also nest under tree roots or among rocks. The two or three white eggs are incubated by both parents for about three weeks. Another unusual parrot of New Zealand is the kea. These brownish-green birds live above the timberline in the mountains during the summer and nest among the rocks. However with the coming of winter the keas move down to warmer areas. After extensive sheep ranching was begun by settlers in New Zealand, the keas discovered a new source of food in winter—the discarded remains of slaughtered sheep. They acquired such a taste for sheep fat that eventually the birds began killing live sheep. New Zealanders put a bounty on keas for some time, but finally found that the way to keep the birds from killing sheep was simply to bury remains of slaughtered sheep so the keas could not learn to eat meat. New Guinea and nearby islands are the home of the tiny pigmy parrots. They have tails similar to those of woodpeckers and use them in much the same way.

Some species of pigmy parrots build their nest in the nests of termites; others nest in holes in trees. For some unknown reason it is impossible to keep pigmy parrots alive in captivity. At one time there were parrots in the United States. They were called Carolina parakeets. Great flocks of them lived in the country east of the Rockies. Unfortunately when the country was being settled, and before the days of conservation, farmers killed large numbers of these birds because they ate the fruit on the farmers’ trees. When a few birds were shot, the flock would return to see what had happened to them. It was then easy for the farmer to kill the rest of the flock. None have been seen since 1920.

Most parrots nest in holes and lay white eggs. They have strong beaks and thick tongues. They eat nuts, seeds and fruits. Some of them use their claws to hold and to bring food to their mouths, almost as if their claws were hands. Many kinds of parrots are thought to mate for life.

The little love birds, small parrots found in Asia and Africa, make perhaps the most obviously devoted mates in the bird world. When caged, they show each other constant attention and if one dies the other is said to pine away unless another mate is provided for it.

Parrots Pictures