Bride Duangreuthai Amnuayweroj and groom Kasemsak Jiranantiporn fly while attached to cables during a wedding ceremony ahead of Valentine's Day at a resort in Ratchaburi province, Thailand, February 13, 2016. Four Thai couples took part in the wedding ceremony arranged by the resort. (Photo by Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters)

Debris fly into the air as foreign fishing boats are blown up by Indonesian Navy off Batam Island, Indonesia, Monday, February 22, 2016. Authorities on Monday sank dozens of fishing boats caught operating illegally in Indonesian waters as part of the country's campaign to battle illegal fishing. (Photo by M. Urip/AP Photo)

Visitors attend the balloon festival on the Eid al-Fitr holiday at Ronggolawe Stadion on April 23, 2023, in Wonosobo, Central Java, Indonesia. Javanese people fly giant hot air balloons during Eid, which has long been a tradition of the Wonosobo regency. (Photo by Garry Lotulung/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

In advance of Fleet Week performances, the U.S. Navy Blue Angels and Team Oracle aerobatics pilot Sean D. Tucker fly over the San Francisco Bay during a photo flight on Thursday, October 5, 2017. (Photo by Noah Berger/AP Photo)

“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)

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.

Employee of ornithological flight support service Nika Ryzhova-Alenicheva holds her hawk, which is used to control fauna to avoid bird strikes during takeoffs and landings, at Domodedovo airport outside Moscow, Russia September 2, 2016. (Photo by Maxim Zmeyev/Reuters)

A flock of Adjutants storks sit on a garbage dump at Borgaon in Guwahati, Assam, India, 17 October 2019. Wildlife activists and environmentalists have protested in the past for shifting the garbage dump to another site since it is situated near the Deepor Beel Bird Sanctuary. (Photo by EPA/EFE/Stringer)