Carnivorous birds like hawks, owls and eagles have strong hooked beaks for tearing flesh. Ducks and geese dredge up roots, seeds and small water life, letting the mud and water strain away through grooves in the edges of their broad shovel-like bills. The woodcock probes in damp soil for earthworms with its long slender bill. The hummingbird uses its long proboscis to suck up nectar. The short stout cone-shaped beaks of such birds as the cardinal and the sparrows are adapted for gathering and cracking seeds.
Most songbirds feed protein-rich insects to their growing young.
The warblers have thin tweezers for picking small insect life from vegetation. The woodpeckers have chisel-bills that hammer holes in dead wood for grubs which they harpoon with their long barbed tongues. These bills are equipped with a special shock absorber that prevents injury to the brain. The beak is used to carry selected nest materials and to construct a certain characteristic type of nest. Hawks and eagles, however, carry nest sticks with their feet.