Tubenoses (albatrosses, petrels, shearwaters, storm petrels and diving petrels) live a long time and mature slowly. Some species do not reproduce until they are 15 years old. Then they typically pair up with a mate for life. The pair nests on a remote island, usually the same one year after year. Their long, external nostrils (tube nose) may help them find the nesting area by smell. Nesting occurs at most once per year, and a single egg is laid each time. A couple of months after hatching, the parents return to sea. Many more months may pass before their chick can fly, and they come back periodically to feed it. Their reproductive habits make tubenoses sensitive to human impacts. During the 1900s, albatross feathers became fashionable for lady?s hats and were easily collected from nesting birds. People colonizing islands have brought rats, cats, and dogs that prey on tubenose eggs and chicks. The low reproductive rates of tubenoses make for slow recoveries of their populations.

All modern birds have bills and no teeth. The shape of a bird's bill says a lot about what it eats, for example whether it specializes in seeds (stout , cracking bill), fish (pointy, spearing bill), or plants (wide, serrated bill). Birds swallow their food without chewing, so it travels to the stomach whole or in large pieces. Bird digestive tracts have some special features for digesting chunky food. A pouch in their throat (the crop), is used to store food to be digested later, or regurgitated to feed the young. An extra, muscular stomach (the gizzard) grinds food up. Birds are endotherms, using heat they make internally to keep warm. While a few species allow their body temperature to drop at night (torpor), a nearly constant body temperature is maintained by most birds most of the time. Continuously making heat requires fuel to burn, in the form of food. So, birds spend a lot of time eating.