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Birds


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Birds are warm-blooded vertebrates with bodies covered in feathers made of keratin, and forelimbs modified into wings. Other characteristics of birds include feet covered in scales, vestigial claws on wing tips, a bill covered in keratin, and an oil gland for dressing the plumage.

The museum collection includes an emperor penguin collected during Scott’s Arctic expedition (1901-1904) which greets visitors at the entrance to the Alfred Denny building; a 3-metre tall ostrich skeleton; and a life-sized model of an elephant bird’s egg. Extinct since the 17th century, the elephant bird, along with its close cousin, the Moa, is the largest bird to have ever roamed the earth, and produced eggs that were 160 times larger than a chicken egg.


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Bird specimens by alphabetical order:


African penguin
Bar-tailed godwit
Carrion crow
Common guillemot
Common Raven
Common starling
Dunnock
Eurasian Black Grouse
Eurasian oystercatcher
Eurasian teal
Goldcrest
Great Spotted kiwi
Great cormorant
House sparrow
Kiwi
Little penguin
Long-tailed tit
Northern fulmar
Ostrich
Razorbill
Red-legged partridge
Screamer
Tawny owl
(American) Flamingo
Black-tailed trainbearer
Coal tit
Common kingfisher
Common scoter
Dalmatian pelican
Elephant bird
Eurasian blue tit
Eurasian skylark
Eurasian wren
Golden Eagle
Great tit
Grey heron
Hummingbird
Lesser bird-of-paradise
Long eared-owl
Mute swan
Northern gannet
Pigeon
Red grouse
Rook
Southern Brown kiwi
Tinamou
Barn swallow
Blyth's hornbill
Common blackbird
Common pheasant
Common shelduck
Domestic fowl
Emu
Eurasian curlew
Eurasian Sparrowhawk
Germain's swiftlet (nest)
Goosander
Greenfinch
Herring gull
Hoatzin
Jack snipe
Little grebe
Northern Lapwing
Northern pintail
Penguin
Red knot
Rhea
Superb bird-of-paradise
Western barn owl
Western Jackdaw
Willow warbler
Yellowhammer
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