--- title: Birds of every kind: penguins, ostriches, parrots, hummingbirds, songbirds, crows — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Birds of every kind: penguins, ostriches, parrots, hummingbirds, songbirds, crows», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: About 11,000 kinds of birds share the same plan of feathers, beak and two wings, yet eac --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/35-birds-of-every-kind/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/) / Birds of every kind: penguins, ostrich… # Birds of every kind: penguins, ostriches, parrots, hummingbirds, songbirds, crows Lesson 35 of the biology course of Mova's primary school: 15 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/biology/35-birds-of-every-kind/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/35-birds-of-every-kind/0/) — About 11,000 kinds of birds share the same plan of feathers, beak and two wings, yet each has bent it to fit its own life. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/35-birds-of-every-kind/1/) — The penguin's wings became flippers, the ostrich's legs became racing legs with two toes, and the hummingbird's wings beat so fast it can hover and even fly backwards. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/35-birds-of-every-kind/2/) — Some birds are brainy: a crow drops walnuts on a road for cars to crack, a jay remembers where it buried thousands of acorns, and an African grey parrot can name colours. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/35-birds-of-every-kind/3/) — Others are tricksters: a cuckoo leaves its egg for a small reed warbler to raise, and a lyrebird copies a camera shutter and a chainsaw. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/35-birds-of-every-kind/4/) — Christmas cards get the map wrong: polar bears live in the far north and penguins in the south, so in the wild they never meet. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/35-birds-of-every-kind/5/) — Emperor penguin fathers hold the egg on their feet under a fold of belly skin for about two months without eating, near minus 40 degrees, huddling in thousands and taking turns in the warm middle. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/35-birds-of-every-kind/6/) — Polar bears live only in the Arctic and penguins live in the southern half of the world, so in the wild they never meet. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/35-birds-of-every-kind/7/) — The ostrich is the biggest living bird, up to about 2.7 m tall; it cannot fly but runs at about 70 km/h on feet with only two toes, and the head-in-sand story is a myth: to hide it lies flat with its neck on the ground. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/35-birds-of-every-kind/8/) — Parrots copy sounds with a voice box deep in the chest; Alex, an African grey studied for 30 years, learned over 100 words and could name colours, shapes and numbers. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/35-birds-of-every-kind/9/) — Hummingbirds beat their wings about 50 to 80 times a second in a figure-of-eight, so they can hover and fly backwards; the bee hummingbird of Cuba is the smallest bird. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/35-birds-of-every-kind/10/) — Crows in Japan drop walnuts at traffic lights for cars to crack, and crows can remember a human face for years. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/35-birds-of-every-kind/13/) — Flamingos are pink from the colours in the algae and brine shrimp they eat; chicks are grey, and the backward bend in the leg is the ankle, not the knee, which is hidden up in the feathers. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/35-birds-of-every-kind/14/) — Woodpeckers hammer wood up to about 20 times a second to find grubs, dig nests and drum to claim a territory. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/35-birds-of-every-kind/15/) — A cuckoo lays its egg in another bird's nest; the cuckoo chick pushes out the other eggs and the foster parents feed it even when it is far bigger than them; young cuckoos later fly to Africa alone, with no parents to show them the way. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/35-birds-of-every-kind/16/) — The kiwi of New Zealand is a flightless bird that comes out at night and finds worms by smell with nostrils at the tip of its long beak, which no other bird has. - ← previous: [Birds of prey and owls](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/34-birds-of-prey-and-owls/) - next →: [Insects: six legs, three parts; ants, bees and wasps](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/36-insects-six-legs-ants-bees-and-wasps/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)