The Godson family had faced eviction over neighbours' complaints about the birds squawking and swearing. Now, after the family were targeted in a drive-by smoke-bomb attack over the birds they have upped and moved 200 miles from Hemel Hempstead, Herts, to Minehead, Somerset. And their pets join in their new idyllic coastal life – by walking along the beach with them on May 9, 2023. (Photo by Neil Hope/The Sun)

Climate change activists dressed up as black birds protest in St. Ives, on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Cornwall, Britain, June 11, 2021. (Photo by Dylan Martinez/Reuters)

As an airliner prepares to land, a bird takes off at the Gravelly Point park near Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Va. on December 23, 2018. (Photo by Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)

“Chameleons (family Chamaeleonidae) are a distinctive and highly specialized clade of lizards. They are distinguished by their parrot-like zygodactylous feet, their separately mobile and stereoscopic eyes, their very long, highly modified, and rapidly extrudable tongues, their swaying gait, the possession by many of a prehensile tail, crests or horns on their distinctively shaped heads, and the ability of some to change color. Uniquely adapted for climbing and visual hunting, the approximately 160 species of chameleon range from Africa, Madagascar, Spain and Portugal, across south Asia, to Sri Lanka, have been introduced to Hawaii, California and Florida, and are found in warm habitats that vary from rain forest to desert conditions”. – Wikipedia

Photo: A woman with the latest fashion accessory, a chameleon. (Photo by Fox Photos/Getty Images). Circa 1926

“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)

In this photo taken Wednesday, April 30, 2014, a dragonfly sits on the nose of a Gharial, rare crocodile-like creatures, in the River Chambal near Bhopepura village in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. The narrow 250-mile stretch of the Chambal is a place of crocodiles and jackals, of river dolphins and the occasional wolf. Hundreds of species of birds, storks, geese, babblers, larks, falcons and so many more, nest along the river. Endangered birds lay small speckled eggs in tiny pits they dig in the sandbars. Gharials, rare crocodile-like creatures that look like they swaggered out of the Mesozoic Era, are commonplace here and nowhere else. (Photo by Altaf Qadri/AP Photo)

Frank A. Rinehart, a commercial photographer in Omaha, Nebraska, was commissioned to photograph the 1898 Indian Congress, part of the Trans-Mississippi International Exposition. More than five hundred Native Americans from thirty-five tribes attended the conference, providing the gifted photographer and artist an opportunity to create a stunning visual document of Native American life and culture at the dawn of the 20th century. Photo: Little Bird, Arapahoe, 1899. (Photo by Frank A. Rinehart)

The Greater Sage-Grouse is certainly a formidable-looking bird. Being the largest grouse in North America and having tail feathers, which look like giant spikes, make for a ferocious sight. These birds are well known for their complicated courtship rituals, in which the males perform a special “strutting display” to attract the females. Another distinct feature of the Greater Sage-Grouse is two large yellow throat sacs (gular sacs), which are inflated by the males during the courtship display. Unlike pelicans, whose gular sacs are used to store fish while hunting, the throat sacks of the Greater Sage-Grouse are merely for display.