This is bird note.

If you were to look at the beak of a baby loon or a young crossbill,

you'd have to wonder just what kind of bird you were seeing,

because their beaks look nothing like the beaks of their parents.

Red crossbills are a striking example of how some young birds must grow into their adult bill shape.

A young crossbill starts life with a wedge-shaped beak. As it grows up and starts to feed itself by removing conifer seeds from their tough packaging,

the tips of its bill begin to grow rapidly, and then they cross.

By the time the bird is a month and a half old, it's been twisting its bill again and again,

always in the same direction, as it extracts hard to get seeds.

The tips of its bill become fully crossed.

Kind of like when your parents warned you that if you keep making that face, it's going

to stick that way. making that

making that face it's going to stick that way.

And take lunes.

These birds begin life with stubby bills

that slowly develop their full dagger shape.

Or flamingos. A baby flamingo has a beak that

looks more like that of a goose, but as the bird grows the beak starts to curve

into that strangely bent flamingo beak we all recognize.

Despite some awkward teenage phases,

all of these young birds eventually grow into

and come to rely on their unique beaks. For Bird Note, I'm Ashley Ahern.

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