Glossary of bird terms

The following is a glossary of common English language terms used in the description of birds—warm-blooded vertebrates of the class Aves and the only living dinosaurs, characterized by , the ability to in all but the approximately 60 extant species of flightless birds, toothless, , the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart and a strong yet lightweight skeleton. Among other details such as size, proportions and shape, terms defining bird features developed and are used to describe features unique to the class—especially evolutionary adaptations that developed to aid flight. There are, for example, numerous terms describing the complex structural makeup of feathers (e.g., , and ); types of feathers (e.g., , and feathers); and their growth and loss (e.g., , and ). There are thousands of terms that are unique to the study of birds. This glossary makes no attempt to cover them all, concentrating on terms that might be found across descriptions of multiple bird species by bird enthusiasts and ornithologists. Though words that are not unique to birds are also covered, such as "" or "", they are defined in relation to other unique features of external bird anatomy, sometimes called "". As a rule, this glossary does not contain individual entries on any of the approximately 9,700 recognized living individual bird species of the world. Preening#Allopreening Altricial Alula Anting (bird activity) Aviculture Beak Beak#Color Debeaking Beak#Bill tip organ Bird ringing Broodiness Brood parasite Bird vocalization Casque (anatomy) Beak#Cere Clutch (eggs) Comb (anatomy) Bird colonyCommunal roostingHeronry and Rookery Covert feather Crest (feathers) Crop (anatomy)#Birds Crop milk Beak#Culmen {| border="1" |- |carnivores (sometimes called faunivores): birds that predominantly forage for the meat of vertebrates—generally hunters as in certain birds of prey—including eagles, owls and shrikes, though piscivores, insectivores and crustacivores may be called specialized types of carnivores.