As the name suggests, crossbills have a crossed beak so they can crush pine cones and feed off the pine kernels inside. Pelicans instead use their big bucket beak to scoop up the fish and swallow them whole for a quick snack. The endless different shapes and sizes of beaks are determined by what they eat, how they eat it, the natural environment and the species they belong to.
 
Oscar Bolton Green’s clear-cut line drawings and brilliant colours explain the many different variations with the same simplicity as the accompanying text. His immediate, essential style, with its patches of colour and clarity of line, shows how tiny hummingbirds stretch into the flowers to draw out the nectar and how graceful flamingo dips its spoon-shaped beak beneath the surface of the water.
 
Language: Italian