By Brian Boone

Let’s be honest here: Birds are kind of weird. Just these lightweight things with sharp faces and feet, flying through the sky, living in trees, squawking, and just letting it out whenever they need to do that. Even more bizarre than a regular bird: These birds, the oddest that scientists have ever noted in their bird books.

Do your wings hang low?

The standard-winged nightjar looks like a common neighborhood bird, similar to a sparrow or a finch, but with one major difference: Its wings aren’t directly attached to its body. Instead, they’re connected on little biological strings and stretch out far away from the body. 

This bird is feeling blue

Not only does the capuchinbird’s huge, bulging eyeballs take up most of the space where its face should go, those bulbs are a bright light blue — as is the beak. The face and head of the bird, also known as a calfbird, tend to fall back into an enveloping plumage that’s a mix of eye-catching yellow, orange, and black.

Blondes have more fish

A puffin kind of looks like a penguin but with splashes of bright colors, like orange, around their face. The tufted puffin has that feature, along with a couple of long tresses, or tufts, or platinum blond hair which show up during mating season. This bird can withstand the blisteringly cold waters of the northern Pacific Ocean. They make their homes out of burrows in cliff edges, and that’s where they bring back their food haul: They can scoop up and hold 20 fish in their mouths at once.

Every bird everywhere all at once

What colors does the Vulturine Guinea Fowl, have on its body and what does it eat? It’s more like what colors doesn’t in sport and what doesn’t it eat. It’s body is lined with black-and-white-stiped feathers, but with white-spotted black ones on the side ad the occasional burst of blue. They really set off its bald head, unflinching blood-red eyes, and little patch of crimson hair. Found in dry deserts and around Kenya and Ethiopia, the Vulturine Guineafowl can fly but almost never chooses to do so, only if it gets separated from its roosting perch. Otherwise it just roams around on the ground, looking for something to eat, be it seeds, rodents, insects, reptiles, and the occasional brush and fruit.

Heads up

Found on the tropical island of Borneo, the Helmeted Hornbill is extremely accurate named. Atop a leathery neck and facial feathers around the eye, Helmeted hornbills have top-heavy, oblong heads because of the casque, a solid construction that naturally forms out of the top of their bills. It’s made of pure keratin — the same material responsible for fingernails — and represents 10% of the bird’s weight. They need all that head and brain protection because of territorial battling. Males of the species ram into each other mid-flight, as if jousting. Those with the strongest casques generally win (and survive).