- The oldest bird was known as Archaeopteryx and lived around 150 million years ago. It was the size of a crow, was covered in feathers and had wings.

- The highest number of yolks found in a single chicken egg is nine.

- An ostrich egg needs to be boiled for 2 hours to obtain a hard-boiled egg.

- Royal Albatross eggs take 79 days to hatch.

- The hummingbird egg is the world's smallest bird egg; the ostrich egg, the world's largest.

- The now extinct Madagascar elephant laid an egg weighing 12,247 kilos.

- Precocial birds such as chickens, ostriches, ducks and gulls hatch from eggs ready to move. They come from eggs with larger yolks than altricial birds such as owls, woodpeckers, and most small songbirds that need a lot of parental care to survive.

- A bird's body temperature is normally 7-8 degrees warmer than that of a human being. Up to three-quarters of the air a bird breathes is used only for cooling because they cannot sweat.

- A bird's heart beats 400 times per minute while resting and up to 1000 beats per minute while flying.

- The only wingless bird in the world is the Kiwi in New Zealand.

- Penguins, ostriches and dodo birds are non-flying birds.

- Cher Ami, (an American-trained homing pigeon donated by pigeon fanciers to Britain for use by the Army in France during World War I that helped save the lost Battalion of the 77th Division in October 1918), lost an eye and a leg while carrying a message in World War I. Cher Ami was awarded the Service Cross in 1918. Cher Ami won the Distinguished Service Cross. His leg was replaced with a wooden leg.

- The only known poisonous bird in the world is the hooded pitohui of Papua, New Guinea. The poison is found in its skin and feathers.

- The American turkey vulture helps human engineers detect split or broken underground fuel pipes. Escaping fuel smells like vulture food (carrion).