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This is a revolving quiz about bird biology and behaviour!

The first person who asks an identification question will get fired! (I know your boss!)

(If you like that idea ... I will speak to him about terminating your possibility of retirement!)

From what, is it thought, have birds feathers evolved?

Birds are meant to have evolved from fish, so would it not have been the fins?

Birds evolved from dinosaurs and the feathers are from the scales .

oopsie, yes

we are from the fish

A little hint. Birds are actually still part of that grouping though very few people realise it. (Birders would die a thousand deaths if they realise it.) It is a group that is alive and well and not only living beneath water.

Do you mean reptiles ?
Dinosaurs were also reptiles (Archeosauria ) , and the Crocodiles are still around.

Birds didn't evolve nor did birds feathers

For the ones not reading my posts in the Birding topic . Yet, I still don't know what you mean Imberbe.

Is this the answer? Copied and pasted from this web site:
http://www.nurseminerva.co.uk/adapt/feathers.htm

The precursor of a feather may have been a conical papilla developed from a cylindrical follicle within the skin. In the next stage, the papilla becomes a tuft of unbranched filaments (barbs), and then each filament becomes branched (barbules). At some point the branched filaments appear to have become organised around a central stem (rachis) to produce the pennate arrangement of present-day feathers.

Yes, I was just being a little difficult, to make this fact plain.

Birds are actually merely a sub division of the broader reptile grouping. They are closer related to some reptiles, than other reptiles are. e.g. Crocodiles are closer related to birds than to monitors.

And yes, it is thought that feathers evolved from reptile scales.

mikev you're IT!

What are the Accipiter hawks and which features distinguish them ?

Sparrow- and Goshawks

- Females are larger than males
- Slender built with long legs and a long tail
- Short broad rounded wings
- Long sharp talons with a sharp hooked bill
- Flight pattern is a series of flaps followed by a short glide

Sonbessie, correct , you may take over the questioning please .

If I may add

- unfeathered legs .

- they specialize in preying on small birds and mammals in swift pursuit from a standing start.

Which weaver, unlike other weavers, flies straight into the nest from a distance away, or a neighbouring tree, without first perching near the nest.