Birds of prey are some of the fiercest, fastest and largest birds around. But many have evolved remarkable and downright weird hunting techniques, body shapes and colours to ensure maximum hunting success. Here are 12 of the weirdest birds of prey - from the largest to the smallest and what makes them so unique.
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Weirdest birds of prey in the world
Andean condor
The Andean condor is the heaviest bird of prey in the world (weighing up to 15kg), and is the raptor with the longest wingspan (3.2m). It is an iconic figure, that features on the Ecuadorian flag, and one of the things that makes it just so weird is its naked fleshy head. One theory as to why it lacks any plumage up top is that it allows the bird to dive into animal carcasses without getting too dirty.
It's an incredible feat to get that kind of bulk up into the air, but these birds are masters in effortless soaring, using wind gusts, warm air currents and streams of air pushed up by cliffs and mountains. One bird was found to have flown for five hours, covering a distance of 160km without flapping its wings once.
Crested owl
This cute little owl looks a little like a character from the film Gremlins, but apart from the way it looks, not a lot has been discovered about the crested owl. It's the sole member of its genus Lophostrix, and its basic biology remains mysterious. Little is known about what prey animal the Crested owl targets and its nest hasn't even been described. It's fairly common across large swathes of Central and South America.
King vulture
It may have an inconspicuous body, but when you get to the King vulture's vibrant head it's a whole other story. Its head and throat is mostly bald but from the neck up the King vulture is coloured red, purple and vivid orange with an irregular fleshy wattle on the side of its bill called a 'caruncle'. Its white irises are bordered by a ring of red, and in all it gives a supremely weird effect.
This large scavenger bird lives between southern Mexico and northern Argentina and is the only surviving member of the Sarcoramphus genus.
Elf owl
Big may be what you'd initially associate with birds of prey, but what about tiny? The Elf owl is officially the world's smallest owl and stands at 13-15cm tall - about the size of a European robin. Found in Mexico and southwest USA, they nest in cavities formed by other birds and in the stems of cacti.
One of the most startling thing about the Elf owl is their ability to play dead. In the face of a would-be attacker they go limp, which often means they are released, whereby the Elf owl comes back to life and escapes.
Bearded vulture
While chewing on bone in the animal kingdom is not unheard of, actually surviving on bone is a different ball-game. Which is why the Bearded vulture - or Lammergeier - is such an oddity: bone makes up as much as 90 per cent of its food. In fact, if given a choice the bird will choose bone over flesh.
The act of eating bone is called osteophagia and you might not think it's enough to sustain a huge vulture - with a wingspan of nearly 3 meters. But in fact, a 2017 study found that fresh bone contains 8 per cent more energy than fresh meat.
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Peregrine falcon
Found worldwide, including in the UK, the Peregrine falcon could be considered one of the world's most dangerous birds - certainly when it comes to other birds. Often dubbed the 'fastest bird on Earth' the Peregrine falcon folds its wings and tail to hunt and then plummets down at an incredible speed before bringing out its talons to strike its victim mid-air.
Peregrine falcons are capable of reaching 290kph and in order to avoid damage to their lungs at such high speeds, the birds have specialised 'tubercles' in their nostrils - small, bony protuberances which reduces the speed of the air in their passageways.
Harpy eagle
These huge birds of prey are legendary for their aggression and hunting ability and aren't afraid of zoning in on monkeys in the canopy as their food. When cameraman James Aldred came to film a Harpy eagle nest, he wore a police riot helmet and a stab vest. It turns out he needed it: 'The blow was unbelievably powerful, like being hit in the back of the head with a baseball bat. To make matters worse, one of her talons had pierced my neck, leaving it numb and bleeding.'
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The Harpy eagle measures around 0.9–1m from meat-cleaver beak to tail. The wings, which span up to 2m, are relatively short for the eagle’s size, but combine with a long tail to give this mighty bird – like a giant sparrowhawk – great manoeuvrability in flight.
Lappet-faced vulture
If anyone has read The Ugly Five by Julia Donaldson, they'll know of the Lappet-faced vulture which appears as one of the ugliest animals in the children's book. Bald, like the King vulture, but a lot less colourful, the Lappet-faced vulture doesn't look a million miles away from a turkey. Lappet means decorative fold or flap, and here it's used to describe the skin on its face - it has various flaps and folds but no feathers, which again could be in order to keep things clean when they are diving into a carcass.
Pygmy falcon
The tiniest bird of prey on the African continent, the Pygmy falcon is about as heavy as a golf ball. They take advantage of unused chambers in weaver bird colonies to shelter. However the Pygmy falcons have a neat way of marking out which chamber they are using - they coat it in excrement.
Blakiston's fish owl
The largest owl in the world is Blakiston's fish owl, and the females, when fully grown, can weigh around 4.6kg. Their wingspans are up to 200cm long and because their prey are fish, Blakiston's aren't an owl that flies silently - unlike many other owls. Found in the forests of northeast Asia its legs and toes are unfeathered, which is also unusual for an owl.
Eleonora's falcon
In 2016, ornithologists ed by Abdeljebbar Qninba of Morocco’s Mohammed V University made what appears to be a grisly discovery about the Eleonora's falcon in the country’s Mogador archipelago.
Trapped in fissures and holes in the rocks around Eleonora's falcon nests they found several small birds. Some had had their flight feathers plucked out, but all of them were alive. This lead ornithologists to ask the question: were Eleonora's falcons catching migrant birds and imprisoning them to eat alive at a later date? Not everyone was convinced, and there is still more study work to be done, but if it is true it's certainly one of the weirder traits seen by a bird of prey.
