This is Bird Note.

A fine woodworker will have a chest full of tools of different sizes and shapes, each designed for a specific task.

Birds also have highly refined tools, they're bills.

The size and shape of a bird's bill match perfectly, the food it seeks and the way it obtains its meals.

Think of a hummingbird.

Slipping its long, thin bill deep into a flower to suck out nectar.

Or the large, hooked-shaped bill of an eagle.

Ripping apart its prey.

The chunky bill of a puffin can hold a lineup of small fish, allowing the bird to gather a large

store of food before flying, often long distances, back to its burrow.

Different species of shorebirds that forge shoulder-to-shoulder and tidal estuaries have bills of different lengths.

As a result, they don't compete for the same food.

Plovers.

Collect prey from the surface using short blunt bills.

Dowagers.

Probe under the surface with longer bills.

Curlose.

With their extremely long bills reach deep into the substrate to find food.

Through evolution, each bird has developed the tool it needs to survive.

For Bird Note, I'm Mary McCann.