Handbook of Nature-Study · Lesson V · Topic 1: Bird study: how a bird is made
5. The beak of a bird
Goal: Your child can explain how a hen's sharp beak and a duck's wide, flat bill each fit the food the bird eats.
You'll need
- A chance to watch a hen and a duck feed (a farm, or a hen yard plus a park pond)
- A pair of tweezers and a small kitchen strainer
- A few seeds and a bowl of water with bits of leaf floating in it
- Nature notebook
What's in the book
The leading thought, the method (the hen or chick, then the duckling or gosling) and five questions comparing the hen's beak with the duck's bill: food, hardness, the saw teeth that strain water, other uses, and nostrils.
The lesson, step by step
When and where
Any season. You need a hen to watch pecking and a duck to watch dabbling, so a farm with both, or a hen yard and a park pond. Please don't feed bread to park ducks; it is bad for them.
Keep the big idea in mind
Read this to yourself:
Each kind of bird has a beak especially adapted for getting its food. The beak and feet of a bird are its chief weapons and implements.
Watch the hen
What kind of food does the hen eat and where and how does she find it in the field or garden? How is her beak adapted to get this food?
Has the hen any teeth? Does she need any?
Watch the duck
Compare the bill of the hen with that of the duck? What are the differences in shape? Which is the harder?
Note the saw teeth along the edge of the duck's bill. Are these for chewing? Do they act as a strainer? Why does the duck need to strain its food?
Try being a bird
Scatter a few seeds and have your child pick them up with tweezers: that is the hen's beak. Then float bits of leaf in a bowl of water and scoop them out with the strainer: that is the duck's bill.
Could a duck pick up a hen's food from the earth or the hen strain out a duck's food from the water?
Other uses and nostrils
For what other things than getting food do these fowls use their bills?
Can you see the nostrils in the bill of a hen? Do they show plainer in the duck?
Put it into words
Ask your child to tell you why a hen's beak and a duck's bill are different shapes. Then share the leading thought.
Nature notebook
Draw a hen's head and a duck's head side by side, the beaks large and clear. Under each, write what the bird eats.
Afterwards
Each day this week, look closely at one bird's beak and guess what it eats from the shape.
Tip
Comstock's teacher's story suggests a game: try to put away books and pencils with hands held behind the back. It shows how a bird's beak does the work of hands.