He is a pelican named Petros, also know as Peter. He first came to Mykonos when a local fisherman found the wounded bird and brought him home for nursing. Peter soon became a local character on the tiny island, which is only 33 square miles in size.

Photographs taken by LIFE photographer James Burke in 1961 show Peter amusing beachgoers on the shore, cavorting about town and spending time with a fisherman. Because Burke’s photos were taken for a story that never ran in LIFE, we can’t be sure if that fisherman is the one who rescued Peter. But that would make sense because the two seem awfully attached to each other. In some photos Peter and the fisherman are nose-to-beak.

As a pelican, his long beak is Peter’s most distinctive physical characteristic. Pelicans, with their particular shape, are excellent fishing birds who thrive near water, so an island in the Aegean sea was an ideal place for Peter to make a home.

Peter died in 1985 after being hit by a car, and one obituary hailed him as “the world’s most famous pelican.” By then the bird had become ingrained in Mykonos’ identity, and several pelicans were brought in to replace Peter, including one that was donated by former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

So visitors to Mykonos today can still take photos with a friendly pelican.

Peter, a pelican who had been found wounded and then nursed to health on Mykonos, became the Greek island’s mascot, 1961.

James Burke/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Peter, a pelican who had been found wounded and then nursed to health on Mykonos, became the Greek island’s mascot, 1961.

James Burke/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Peter, who had been found wounded and then nursed to health on Mykonos, became the Greek island’s mascot, 1961.

James Burke/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Peter, a pelican who had been found wounded and then nursed to health on Mykonos, became the Greek island’s mascot, 1961.

James Burke/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Peter, a pelican who had been found wounded and then nursed to health on Mykonos, became the Greek island’s mascot, 1961.

James Burke/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Peter, a pelican who had been found wounded and then nursed to health on Mykonos, became the Greek island’s mascot, 1961.

James Burke/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Peter, a pelican who had been found wounded and then nursed to health on Mykonos, became the Greek island’s mascot, 1961.

James Burke/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Peter, a pelican who had been found wounded and then nursed to health on Mykonos, became the Greek island’s mascot, 1961.

James Burke/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Peter, a pelican who had been found wounded and then nursed to health on Mykonos, became the Greek island’s mascot, 1961.

James Burke/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Peter, a pelican who had been found wounded and then nursed to health on Mykonos, became the Greek island’s mascot, 1961.

James Burke/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Peter, a pelican who had been found wounded and then nursed to health on Mykonos, became the Greek island’s mascot, 1961.

James Burke/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Peter, a pelican who had been found wounded and then nursed to health on Mykonos, became the Greek island’s mascot, 1961.

James Burke/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Peter the Pelican napped while standing on the island of Mykonos, 1961.

James Burke/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Peter, a pelican who had been found wounded and then nursed to health on Mykonos, became the Greek island’s mascot, 1961.

James Burke/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Peter, a pelican who had been found wounded and then nursed to health on Mykonos, became the Greek island’s mascot, 1961.

James Burke/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Peter, a pelican who had been found wounded and then nursed to health on Mykonos, became the Greek island’s mascot, 1961.

James Burke/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Peter, a pelican who had been found wounded and then nursed to health on Mykonos, became the Greek island’s mascot, 1961.

James Burke/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Peter, a pelican who had been found wounded and then nursed to health on Mykonos, became the Greek island’s mascot, 1961.

James Burke/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Peter, a pelican who had been found wounded and then nursed to health on Mykonos, became the Greek island’s mascot, 1961.

James Burke/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Peter, a pelican who had been found wounded and then nursed to health on Mykonos, became the Greek island’s mascot, 1961.

James Burke/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The post Meet Peter, the Pelican Mascot of Mykonos appeared first on LIFE.

Few words in the American vocabulary inspire fear and fascination the way shark does. If shouted too loudly on a sunny Cape Cod beach, it could prompt scores of swimmers to rush to shore. When attached to a movie poster—think Jaws and Sharknado—the association has reliably led to big box office. More than half of Americans say they are scared of sharks, and a third have said they are so terrified they suffer from galeophobia (the scientific designation for a shark phobia) and won’t even go in the water. 

There are plenty of reasons we are afraid of sharks. From a psychological perspective, being attacked by a shark looms as a particularly gruesome way to die. “We’re not just afraid of things because of the likelihood that they’ll happen, but [also] because of the nature of them if they do happen,” David Ropeik, who has studied the gap between human fears and reality, told Live Science in 2015. “It may be unlikely that you’ll be attacked by a shark, but it would suck if you did.” On top of that, there have been vastly more unprovoked shark-related incidents in the United States over time—28 in 2024 alone, triple that of Australia, which is next in line. 

The odds of dying in a shark attack during your lifetime are incredibly remote—1 in 4.3 million. Each year, there are typically around six unprovoked shark-related fatalities worldwide. A beachgoer is far more likely to die of sun exposure (.00007 percent chance) or in a car accident (.011 percent chance) than from a shark attack. According to data compiled by the International Shark Attack File, you’re far more likely to be bitten by a New Yorker than a shark.

Perhaps because so much of the United States is landlocked, sharks historically were not on the American radar. In fact, for many years, sharks didn’t bite people in the U.S. Or, at least, that’s what the general population and some academics thought. Consider Maryland-born athlete Hermann Oelrichs, who in 1891 felt so sure
that sharks were harmless, he jumped into the sharky waters outside his home in Newport, Rhode Island, to prove his point to some guests. Oelrichs was fine; the fish and sharks scattered—likely frightened by the splash, according to the Pittsburgh Dispatch. The upshot: Scientists at the American Museum of Natural History in New York later cited Oelrichs’s stunt as scientific evidence that man-eating sharks did not exist. 

The conviction that sharks posed no threat would not last long. Fast-forward to 1916 on the Jersey Shore, when in the course of just 12 days, five people were attacked by sharks. In an attempt to contain public anxiety, authorities blamed all of the attacks on a single young great white that was found with human remains in its stomach. 

The single-shark messaging led to the “mythos of a rogue killer . . . intentionally moving around and finding victims,” says Janet M. Davis, a professor of American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, who has studied the history of human-shark interactions. “The fact that these fatal bites [in New Jersey] occurred in such rapid succession really scared people.” Locals fought back, with some tossing sticks of dynamite into a creek where one of the victims was found. President Woodrow Wilson promised federal aid to “drive away all the ferocious man-eating sharks which have been making prey of bathers,” reported the Philadelphia Inquirer. 

During World War II, anxiety about shark attacks was so pronounced, the Navy began work on a shark repellent, with the help of the Office of Strategic Services, the precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency. Among others who devoted themselves to the repellent was OSS executive assistant and future chef Julia Child, who experimented with combinations of nicotine, clove oil, horse urine, rotting shark muscle, and asparagus in the hopes of preventing shark attacks. Before the end of the war, the Navy introduced Shark Chaser, a pink pill of copper acetate that produced an inky black dye when released in the water, obscuring a serviceman from lurking sharks. 

With the war’s end, it would be another 30 years before fear of sharks again gripped the public. The precipitating events: the publication of the book Jaws by Peter Benchley and the release of the Hollywood version, also called Jaws.  

“During the summer of 1975 when Jaws was in hundreds of theaters across the [U.S.] . . . we could see the fear that it was stirring up,” Wendy Benchley, an ocean conservationist and the novelist’s widow, told National Geographic in 2022. For some, that meant avoiding swimming in deep waters. Others were inspired to emulate the film’s heroes and sail out to sea to hunt down these creatures. Across the U.S. East Coast in the mid-1980s, sporting events, such as Monster Shark Tournaments, took place to kill sharks as conquests. “It horrified Peter and me that some people’s first reaction was to kill sharks,” she said. 

But there were also members of the public who found the story thrilling. Thousands of people around the world sent letters to Benchley to describe how the book and film had inspired them to learn more, become marine biologists, or photograph sharks. (One example: Eight years after the release of Jaws, a group of scientists founded the American Elasmobranch Society, to promote the study of sharks.) “There is no question that Jaws made a lot of people scared of sharks, and some responded by killing these animals,” shark scientist Yannis Papastamatiou told National Geographic in 2022. “Jaws had the opposite effect on me. I wanted to work with sharks.”  

America’s post-Jaws reactions to sharks largely centered around another entertainment medium: Shark Week and the rise of television documentaries. If Jaws—both the book and movie—taught television and film executives anything, it was that sharks sell. The Discovery Channel’s weeklong Shark Week event, inaugurated in 1988 as a way to spark ratings, soon became an annual mainstay–akin to a secular national holiday. 

Originally, Shark Week programming was educationally oriented, including the 1988 film Caged in Fear, about the development of technology to stave off shark attacks. But as ratings for Shark Week grew, Discovery amped up the drama, conflict, and sensationalism. Today, Shark Week tends to feature content like Great White Serial Killer: Sea of Blood, which capitalized on a string of fatal shark attacks off the coast of Mexico. In the film, investigators attempted to identify the perpetrator, a massive great white shark, and capture it on film. 

Although sharks continue to be sensationalized in the media, researchers like Papastamatiou work to promote a more accurate understanding of the animals and support conservation efforts. In particular, Papastamatiou, who runs the Predator Ecology & Conservation Lab at Florida International University, is known for his work around sharks’ social and hunting habits. 

Instead of demonizing sharks, the public should follow the example of seafaring communities in the South Pacific, Davis suggests. In Hawaii and Fiji, sharks are not viewed as blood-frenzied serial killers but instead revered as ancestral spirits. Of course, that doesn’t mean these indigenous communities would call sharks cute and cuddly. “This is an animal that is very powerful and strong,” says Davis. “So even in a culture that really looks to these animals as central to their cosmologies and spiritual worlds, there’s still respect for the potential power of these animals.” These centuries-old stories and traditions align with what scientists have been discovering–the ocean is better with sharks in it.  ——By Courtney Mifsud Intreglia ▼ ▼ 

The following is a selection of photos from LIFE’s new special issue Sharks: Predators of the Sea, which is available here online and at newsstands.

Cover photo by Chris & Monique Fallows/Nature Picture Library

Cover photo by Brad Leue/Alamy

Cultures on seafaring islands in the South Pacific consider the whale shark to be a harbinger of good luck and fortune.

Alamy Stock Photo

Marine biologists observed a Port Jackson shark about 20 meters below in the surface in the waters off Sydney, Australia.

Fairfax Media via Getty Images

Bull sharks, seen above in Western Australia, are found in both saltwater and freshwater. They have been spotted in rivers hundreds of miles from the ocean.

Getty Images

The 1975 summer blockbuster Jaws, starring Roy Scheider, had plenty of people afraid to go in the water.

Corbis via Getty Images

In the 2003 movie Finding Nemo, a shark named Bruce looked intimidating but turned out to be kind and gentle.

©Walt Disney Co./Courtesy Everett Collection

Tourists paddled a kayak, unaware of the great white shark lurking behind them.

Shutterstock/karelnoppe

Sharks circled in the waters off Cocos Island, Costa Rica.

Getty Images

A great white shark leapt against the sunset.

Getty Images/iStockphoto

The post Sharks: Fear and Fascination appeared first on LIFE.

The stars of the 1948 film Bill and Coo were birds. That’s not to say these these birds stole the show by upstaging their human costars—the birds were the show. The movie’s running time is just over an hour, and except for a two-minute introduction featuring humans, the story is acted out entirely by trained birds on a set of miniatures.

Here’s how LIFE described the production in its July 28, 1947 issue:

The pictures on these pages from Republic’s new movie Bill and Coo are tokens of the gloomy contention of the producer, that movie stars belonging to the species homo sapiens are washed up and the birds are ready to take over….No newcomer to strange breeds of actors, Vaudevillian Ken Murray for the last five years has been packing Hollywood’s El Capital Theater with a raucous oldtime variety show called Blackouts…When a bird trainer named brought his lovebird act around, Murray was so impressed that he dreamed up a starring vehicle for it, had miniature sets built and a lovebird story written.

The entire movie can be viewed online, and the photos taken by Peter Stackpole capture both the charm and peculiarity of the enterprise. The film is set in “Chirpendale U.S.A.,” and the location is one of the movie’s many bird-themed puns. The story is narrated by an off-screen human, but you see birds doing things like walking in and out of buildings, pushing little baby carriages and dropping letters in mailboxes. The plot revolves Bill and Coo, who love each other despite their class differences (Bill has a taxi service, Coo comes from a wealthy family), and they must fight off a malicious crow who threatens life in Chirpendale.

(Perhaps the most surprising detail about the production is that it was the only movie directed by former child actor Dean Riesner, who decades later would leave his mark on Hollywood history as one of the writers of the decidedly un-precious movie Dirty Harry. Yes, the man who directed Bill and Coo also gave us the line “Do you feel lucky? Well, do you punk?“)

On the one hand, no one is going to mistake Bill and Coo for Citizen Kane. On the other hand, it did win an honorary Academy Award, for creating a film “In which artistry and patience blended in a novel and entertaining use of the medium of motion pictures.”

It was novel indeed. In fact, when you look at the movie’s IMDB page and scroll to the heading “More Like This,” what you get are not more live-action movies but rather animated films such as Bambi. Which is another way of saying, there really are no movies like this.

Bill and Coo, the titular stars of the movie, stood on top of a trolley on the film’s set.

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Ken Murray first encountered the birds in his vaudeville show and helped dream up the idea for featuring them in the movie that become Bill and Coo.

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Trainer George Burton works with alligators who also played a role in the movie Bill and Coo, 1947.

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

From the set of the bird-centric movie Bill and Coo, 1947.

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The “wrong brothers” are celebrated in one of the many bird-related puns in the movie Bill and Coo.

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A fire-bird slides down a pole the set of the all-bird movie Bill and Coo, 1947.

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

From the set of the bird-centric live action movie Bill and Coo, 1947.

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

From the set of the bird-centric movie Bill and Coo, 1947.

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A crow played the villain in the bird-centric movie Bill and Coo, 1947.

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Owls on the set of the bird-centric movie Bill and Coo, 1947.

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

At the end of the movie Bill and Coo, the titular birds head off on their honeymoon in a puppy-drawn carriage, 1947.

Peter Stackpole/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The post The Oscar-Winning Movie Where the Stars Were All Birds appeared first on LIFE.

Here was the setup offered in LIFE, in an article titled “The Case of the Skating Stones”:

On a dry lake bed high in the Panamint Mountains near Death Valley sit several dozen boulders whose peculiar behavior has long been a nightmare to geologists. The boulders, which weigh up to a quarter ton, stand at the ends of long, gouged-out paths which show that they periodically respond to unknown forces and skate about on the flat earthen floor.

LIFE painted the situation as a complete mystery, mentioning disproved theories from everyday folks that attributed the stones’ movement to the lake bed tilting back and forth, or perhaps to “Russians tampering with the magnetic pole.” (This was the early days of the Cold War, mind you). LIFE ended its writeup by saying “The mystery may never be completely solved. When humans observers are about, the stones refuse to budge an inch.”

But since 1952 scientists, when not busy exploring space and inventing cell phones and so forth, did come up with a leading hypothesis, which is that the stones’ skating is likely caused by the movement of thin sheets of ice that can form there in wintertime, with high winds perhaps helping to push stones along.

Though sometimes the stones have moved for reasons that are all too explicable—such as in 2013, when some stones were stolen. A park spokesman expressed both disappointment and confusion at the theft, saying “They don’t seem to understand that outside the Racetrack, these stones have no value.” Other visitors have damaged the site by taking the “Racetrack” name literally and driving their cars on it.

Sometimes human behavior is a mystery all its own.

The “sailing stones” of the Racetrack Playa in Death Valley, California, 1952.

Loomis Dean/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The “sailing stones” of the Racetrack Playa in Death Valley, California, 1952.

Loomis Dean/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

LIFE’s 1952 story on the sailing stones of Racetrack Playa in Death Valley included this photo of stone-like objects described as “burro droppings” that had likely been moved by the same forces as the stones.

Loomis Dean/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The sailing stones of the Racetrack Playa in Death Valley, California, 1952.

Loomis Dean/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

This three-quarter-ton stone left its mark after moving across a dry lake bed in Death Valley, 1952.

Loomis Dean/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

“Sailing stones” left tracks as they drifted across Racetrack Playa in Death Valley, California, 1952.

Loomis Dean/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A small stone left these intricate tracks on the Racetrack Playa in Death Valley, California, 1952.

Loomis Dean/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

LIFE’s 1952 story on the Racetrack Playa described this photo as being from a “ghost experiment,” guessing that an amateur scientist had tied up the rock to keep it from moving, but over time the rope had eventually rotted away.

Loomis Dean/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The post Stones on the Run: A Death Valley Spectacle appeared first on LIFE.

The basis of that claim? In 1869 a Boston preacher named William H.H. Murray published his popular book Adventures in the Wilderness, or Camp-Life in the Adirondacks, which was a mix of fiction and travel brochure touting the wonders of outdoor life in Lake George. And readers started coming there for getaways, inspired by the idea that the wilds of nature were to be enjoyed rather than merely navigated or avoided. According to an article in Smithsonian about Lake George, the people who ventured there that first summer didn’t enjoy it much because they were often unprepared for outdoor life and the weather that year was unusually cold and rainy. (Sounds like a classic vacation). But in subsequent years the weather was better and Lake George flourished as a tourist destination.

That history may help explain why LIFE photographer Nina Leen went to Lake George in 1941 to photograph a young couple enjoying a weekend in nature. The pictures are indeed stunning, particularly the one titled “Private Island,” which shows the couple sitting together on a small outcropping in the middle of a placid lake. The photo makes Lake George look like a kind of Eden. (It should be noted that the same spot looks more ordinary in other photos taken by Leen— the rock the couple is sitting on is just a few steps from the shore—but as every amateur photographer knows, when crafting that perfect vacation photo, angles are everything).

LIFE never ran Leen’s story on Lake George—one imagines it might have been bumped for news about the gathering storm that was World War II. So we don’t know much about the young man and woman in the photos: their ages, occupations, marital status, or where they arrived from. That’s fine. Their anonymity allows them become a symbolic Adam and Eve, making their way back for a couple days in paradise.

A young couple vacationing at Lake George, New York.

Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A young couple vacationing at Lake George, New York, 1941.

Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A couple vacationing at Lake George, New York, 1941.

Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A young couple enjoyed a Lake George vacation in a Nina Leen photo entitled “Private Island,” 1941.

Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A couple vacationing at Lake George, New York, 1941.

Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A couple vacationing at Lake George, New York, 1941.

Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A couple vacationing at Lake George, New York, 1941.

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A couple vacationing at Lake George, New York, 1941.

Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A couple vacationing at Lake George, New York, 1941.

Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A couple vacationing at Lake George, New York, 1941.

Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A couple vacationing at Lake George, New York, 1941.

Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A couple vacationing at Lake George, New York, 1941.

Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A couple vacationing at Lake George, New York, 1941.

Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A couple vacationing at Lake George, New York, 1941.

Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A couple vacationing at Lake George, New York, 1941.

Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A couple vacationing at Lake George, New York, 1941.

Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A couple vacationing at Lake George, New York, 1941.

Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The post The Original Vacation Spot appeared first on LIFE.

The first bird I fell in love with—my “spark bird”—was soaring in the northeastern Florida sky one May many years ago, its pointed wings spread gracefully and its deeply forked tail gently twisting to guide its curving flight. The black-and-white coloration was distinctive, and I rushed to a local used bookstore for what would become the first of many field guides on my shelves. A few flips of the pages, and I knew I’d seen a swallow-tailed kite, an elegant raptor that is a summer visitor to Florida and the southeastern United States. 

Tens of millions of birders have had similar encounters with their own spark bird. In the United States alone, more than 45 million people are bird watchers. Roughly $4 billion is spent annually on birdseed and foods such as suet, nuts, and nectar, while another $2 billion is spent on binoculars, spotting scopes, and other equipment. Birds are the focus of conservation programs and citizen science projects such as the Great Backyard Bird Count; art projects like the Audubon Mural Project in New York City, which highlights 314 bird species; and movies like Happy Feet (about penguins) and The Big Year (about a birding competition). 

That so many people love birds may be partly because there’s a bird for everyone. The more than 10,000 known bird species come in an extraordinary variety, and they can be found—almost literally—everywhere. 

Birds thrive in all habitats, from fierce roadrunners in rocky deserts to colorful toucans in tropical jungles. You don’t need to live next to a wildlife refuge or nature preserve to enjoy a multitude of bird species—even the busiest cities are home to swallows and sparrows, hawks nesting on skyscrapers, ducks in park ponds, and hummingbirds in flower beds. Taking a trip to the beach? Watch for sandpipers running from the waves, pelicans floating on the water, and gulls flocking on the dunes. In rural areas, there might be quail, magpies, and wild turkeys at the edges of farm fields, while suburban yards can be flush with thrushes, warblers, and buntings. Wherever we are, birds provide us with an active, living connection to nature.

Birds’ often vibrant colors can distinguish a species in a beautiful way. The brilliant red of the northern cardinal stands out against winter snows, while the bright hue of the blue jay is a bold splash of color among the leaves. Birds come in every color, and some—like the painted bunting, with his blue head, lime-green back, and rich red chest—are a rainbow all by themselves.

The varied hues have a purpose. Brighter colors can help birds attract stronger mates—as a general but not ironclad rule, the more colorful of the species are the males, with female birds often more muted, more demure, in their coloring. In other cases, a mottled pattern provides camouflage to protect nesting birds, and some birds, such as the northern pygmy owl, even have false “eyespots” on the back of their head to fool potential predators.

The sight of birds in flight suggests a sense of freedom—from the awesome dive of a peregrine falcon to the swooping curves of a barn swallow, or even the quick flitting of a house wren. The long-distance migrations of birds, flying hundreds or even thousands of miles between their summer and winter habitats, highlight their endurance and perseverance, as well as a kind of navigational intelligence. Birds rely on landmarks and stars to guide their journeys. 

There’s a variety in how they fly as well. Consider the hours-long flights of albatrosses out at sea as they soar on air currents; the frantic, adrenaline-inducing flights of pheasants scattering from predators; or the flittering flights of foraging warblers navigating the high trees without hitting a single branch.

And of course, there’s their songs. Chirps, whistles, coos, and warbles are as familiar as the somewhat less melodious screeches, squawks, hoots, and quacks. Some birds, such as mockingbirds, thrashers, and catbirds, are outstanding mimics and imitate not only other birds but also other animals—as well as car alarms and ring tones. 

Birds sing to attract mates and to defend their territory, with more complex songs indicating better health and greater experience to lure the very best mates or defend larger territories. Other songs and calls communicate information about food or predators, and while in flight, flocks of birds often call to one another to maintain proper spacing with their airborne neighbors. 

The reasons why humans appreciate birds are almost as diverse as birds themselves. The bill of a roseate spoonbill, the hovering of a hummingbird, the gleam of an eagle’s eye, the trill of a nightingale in the gloaming: Maybe one of those birds is your spark bird, long since catalogued or quite literally just up around the bend.

Here is a selection of photos from LIFE’s new special edition exploring the beauty of birds, Birds: The World’s Most Remarkable Creatures.

phototrip/iStock/Getty Images

The secretary bird, native to Africa and found south of the Sahara desert, stands about four feet tall.

Mark Newman/The Image Bank/Getty Images

A red- billed blue magpie can use its wedge-shaped beak to open shells.

eiffel/500px/Getty Images

The wild flamingo owes its distinctive hue to a diet that includes that includes shrimp and algae, which contain carotenoids that, when metabolized, create those fiery-colored feathers.

Jonathan Ross/iStock/Getty Images

During migration, snow geese travel in large flocks and stick to fairly narrow routes that provide winds to follow, good visibility, and precipitation-free periods.

Spondylolithesis/iStock/Getty Images

The king vulture is more colorful than other vultures and, unlike other colorful birds, it is bald, which is believed to help prevent disease-laden animal remains from festering in dense plumage.

miroslav_1/iStock/Getty Images

Lapwings often build their nests in rough or broken ground to help camouflage the eggs.

Andrew Linscott/E+/Getty Images

Known for their smarts, blue jays can mimic the calls of hawks to let other jays know a hawk is nearby.

GummyBone/iStock/Getty Images

Mandarin duck males In spring and early summer have elaborate, colorful plumage. Females are a little less eye-catching, with gray feathers and a muted bill. After the mating season, the males’ feathers molt to brown and gray as well.

Vicki Jauron, Babylon and Beyond Photography/Moment/Getty Images

In the vast landscape of Mongolia’s Altai Mountains, ancient Kazakh hunters on horseback used eagles to track their prey. The tradition was passed down through generations. Today, the practice has become a source of tourism revenue from visitors who pay to see the famed birds in action.

Timothy Allen/Stone/Getty Images

The post Birds: The World’s Most Remarkable Creatures appeared first on LIFE.