Sentence:  And always the man who had died saw not the bird alone, but the short, sharp wave of life of which the bird was the crest. He watched the queer, <WSD>beaky</WSD> motion of the creature as it gobbled into itself the scraps of food; its glancing of the eye of life, ever alert and watchful ... 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  ("of a gesture") Made using a beak; ("of a sound") produced through a beak.