Clara Pennington

My Year 4 class always guesses seahorses are a kind of horse. They are fish, the fathers give birth, and they have no stomach at all. Meet the strangest small fish in the sea.

A walrus can weigh as much as a small car, senses its dinner with its whiskers, and uses its tusks as ice-climbing gear. Here is what makes them tick.

Penguins swapped the sky for the sea, and they have done rather well out of it. Eighteen species, one on the equator, and a dad who fasts for two months holding an egg on his feet.

They see better than we ever will, build nests you could park a car in and court each other by falling out of the sky. Here is what makes an eagle an eagle.

Falcons are small, fierce, and faster in a dive than any other animal alive. Here is what makes them tick, from tomial teeth to nostril baffles.

Ask my Year 4 class how many feathers a swan has and they guess wildly. The real answer is closer to 25,000, and that is only where it starts.

My Year 4 class think parrots are just birds that copy words. They do far more. Meet the birds that climb with their beaks, make their own colour, and once worked out zero.

Six species, one very particular diet, and a bird that finds standing on one leg easier than standing on two. Flamingos are stranger than their garden ornament reputation suggests.

The bird with a bucket for a face, told properly: the longest bill in the world, a pouch that outsizes its own stomach, and a dive that really should hurt more.

The largest bird alive runs faster than a car in a school zone, kicks like a boxer, and has never once buried its head in the sand.

Most people walk past pigeons without a glance. A pity, because the ordinary city pigeon is quietly one of the cleverest birds you will ever meet.

Ravens can plan for tomorrow, mimic a human voice, and slide down snowbanks for no reason at all. The largest songbird on Earth is also one of the sharpest.