Birds Word Search

Birds, one by one

Birds are among the easiest animals to watch, even from a window or a park bench. This word search is a good starting point for an outdoor science activity, and the notes below introduce the eight birds hiding in the letters.

Eagle — Has eyesight eight times sharper than a human's and can spot prey from kilometres away; a symbol of strength for many cultures.

Sparrow — Small and lively, one of the most common birds in the world, often found close to houses.

Owl — Can rotate its head nearly 270 degrees and flies almost silently thanks to special feathers; hunts mostly at night.

Swallow — Travels thousands of kilometres each year on migration and always returns to the same nest; its arrival announces spring.

Crow — One of the most intelligent birds of all: it uses tools, recognises human faces and solves puzzles.

Pigeon — Has a remarkable sense of direction and was once used to carry messages.

Heron — Stays perfectly still for a long time before catching fish with a lightning-fast strike of its beak.

Robin — With its orange chest, one of the most loved birds of winter gardens.

The beak tells you what it eats

One of the naturalist's tricks is to look at the beak to work out the diet. The sparrow has a short, sturdy beak, perfect for cracking seeds; the eagle has a strong hooked one, made for tearing meat; the heron a long pointed bill, like a spear for fish; the robin a thin beak that picks up insects and berries. With paper and crayons, children can compare beaks and guess who eats what.

All birds have feathers and lay eggs, but not all of them fly: the ostrich runs and the penguin swims. Even those that fly lead very different lives: the eagle stays high on the rocks, the swallow spends the cold months in Africa, the owl sleeps by day hidden among the branches. It is a good chance to explain that some birds are residents, staying all year round, while others are migrants that travel with the seasons. Feathers tell a story too: the robin's orange breast is a signal to rival males, while the sparrow's grey-brown plumage makes it almost invisible among bushes and on rooftops.

Going outside: three ideas for after the game

Birds are among the easiest animals to observe, and the word search can become a reason to go out:

• Sparrow spotting. In the garden or the park, each child has a list of four birds from the grid and ticks off the ones they see in ten minutes: sparrows and pigeons are almost always the first.
• The sound notebook. Listen quietly to the sounds around you and describe them with invented words: the sparrow's sharp chirp, the crow's harsh caw, the owl's low, repeated hoot.
• A winter feeder. With an adult, put out a small feeder with sunflower seeds, without salt or bread: the robin is among the first to come close to houses when it is cold.

How this grid is built

Eight words to find in 12×12 squares: one horizontal, four vertical and three diagonal. SPARROW, with seven letters, is the longest; OWL, with three, the shortest. No word is written backwards. A good method is to start with the longest word, which gives you more letters to recognise, and leave the short ones, such as OWL, for last.

Harder, easier

For a harder version, add swan, falcon, nightingale and stork in the generator and choose the 16×16 grid. A simpler alternative is to photocopy the grid and ask each child to look for just one bird, so that by the end the team has found them all.

Also in Italian

The Italian names are aquila (eagle), passero (sparrow), gufo (owl), rondine (swallow), corvo (crow), piccione (pigeon), airone (heron) and pettirosso (robin). You can play the Italian version here: Crucipuzzle degli Uccelli.

More word searches to try

If you liked the birds, try looking for other animals:

• Insects Word Search
• Wild Animals Word Search
• Farm Animals Word Search
• Sea Animals Word Search

If you want to go beyond the grid, more animal ideas are collected in the article Animal word search puzzles.