Even around the Birds & Blooms office, were not always sure if we should ... evening grosbeaks and purple finches have thick, short beaks designed for breaking open seeds with ease.

The size and shape of a bird’s beak usually give a person an idea of what it eats and how it catches what it eats. Birds such as cardinals have strong, conical bills that crack open nuts and seeds.

Incidentally, beak care can be looked at as part of the normal grooming routine of your bird. The beak should be clean and the upper and lower parts of the beak overlap properly. Undershot beaks ...

“normal” beaks (examples shown of a petrel and a gull) and a bird with a tactile bill-tip organ (a tinamou, close relative of ostriches and emus and which has an ancestral bill-tip organ ...