Exploring Nature: Numerous Birds

Sometimes it is feast or famine for birds, either conditions are ideal and they multiply mightily, or conditions are dire and their numbers plummet.

Consider the passenger pigeon. They once darkened the sky with their numbers and literally broke limbs when too many birds settled on one tree. Hunters killed these birds in an epic slaughter until they were finally extinct.

Today, the most numerous bird in the world is the red-billed quela, a midsized brown bird that lives in the savanna regions of Africa. Quelas occur in flocks of several million at roost sites and descend on grasslands like feathered locusts.