A common kingfisher sits on a branch of a tree after catching an insect in Allahabad, India, Sunday, July 9, 2017. The common kingfisher is a highly territorial bird that has to eat nearly sixty percent of its bodyweight every day. (Photo by Rajesh Kumar Singh/AP Photo)

A Monster Jam truck performs a back flip during the first-ever monster truck event in Beijing's iconic “Bird's Nest” National Stadium on Saturday, July 29, 2017. (Photo by Ng Han Guan/AP Photo)

A seagull who turned bright orange after he plunged into a vat of chicken tikka masala in Beckford, England on June 9, 2016. The bird fell into a container of the food while trying to scavenge a piece of meat from a food factory bin in Wales. (Photo by Vale Wildlife Hospital/PA Wire)

Drummers perform during rehearsals at the Bird's Nest National Stadium ahead of the IAAF Athletics World Championships in Beijing on August 20, 2015. The Athletics World Championships will be held at the stadium from August 22 to 30. (Photo by Greg Baker/AFP Photo)

Against the scorching sun, a hungry jackal chases a flock of birds looking for a quick morning snack. Taken in South Africa's Kgalagadi Transfrontier National Park, these images capture the moment a lone hunter tries, and then succeeds, in his pursuit. (Photo by John Mullineux/Solent News)

Photographer Jim Zielinski from Florida, USA, captured this hilarious moment when a squirrel spied a tasty treat inside a novelty horse's head bird feeder in his back garden. (Photo by Jim Zielinski/Caters News)

Erica Daly, a District Nurse Team Leader at Mersey Care NHS, stands in front of the “Liver Bird Wings”, an artwork by Paul Curtis on a wall within Liverpool's Baltic Triangle on April 29, 2020. (Photo by Peter Byrne/PA Images via Getty Images)

“Cassowaries are large, flightless birds related to emus and (more distantly) to ostriches, rheas, and kiwis”, writes Olivia Judson in the September issue of National Geographic magazine. How large? People-size: Adult males stand well over five foot five and top 110 pounds. Females are even taller, and can weigh more than 160 pounds. Dangerous when roused, they’re shy and peaceable when left alone. But even birds this big and tough are prey to habitat loss. The dense New Guinea and Australia rain forests where they live have dwindled. Today cassowaries might number 1,500 to 2,000. And because they help shape those same forests – by moving seeds from one place to another – “if they vanish”, Judson writes, “the structure of the forest would gradually change” too. (Photo by Christian Ziegler/National Geographic)