Kiwis have short beaks

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I've just read Val's (@valmnz) post, And Then There Was One, about the progress of her book. She refers to the fact that New Zealanders are often called 'Kiwis'. The 'real' kiwi is the national bird of New Zealand and can be seen above. It is recorded as having the shortest beak of any bird. I have always thought that was pretty cool seeing the beak is between 87 and 145 mm long (3.4 to 5.7 inches), depending on age and sex. The reason is that technically the length of a bird's beak is measured from the nostrils to the end of the beak – and the kiwi's nostrils are situated at the tip of the beak. I could write lots about the kiwi but long posts can get a bit boring so: Kiwis are about the size of a domestic chicken but lays an egg ten times the size of a chicken's, is mostly nocturnal, find grubs, seeds and insects by smell, and is a ratite meaning it has no keel on the sternum. This means there is no attachment for the wing feathers so it cannot fly. Other ratites are the ostrich, rhea, emu and cassowary. Kiwis tend to mate for life. Another interesting fact is that, to produce her huge egg, the female must eat three times her normal amount for a period of thirty days. Then, because the egg takes up most of the internal body space, she is forced to fast for the last two or three days before laying her massive egg. Isn't Mother Nature incredible? Photo courtesy: Allie_Caulfield [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons