 Today's topic is biology. We're exploring a mysterious part of a bird's digestive tract. Our question, how does a bird eat without having teeth? Our answer, it has a gizzard. When food like seeds and insects travel through a bird's digestive system, the gizzard tightens around it like a little fist. Using its pressure and rough sandpaper-like lining along with the gritty pieces of dirt and gravel, it grinds the food more completely. This allows the bird to gather maximum nutrients. Let's take a look at a gizzard. You can see the muscular part of the gizzard. That's the red meaty looking part and it provides the pressure. The sandpaper-like linings, the yellow wrinkled pieces, act as the grinding plates. Food and grit is located between the two pieces of sandpaper and can be seen in the photo. Now that you understand what a gizzard is and how it works, here's your challenge. Build a model of this small but powerful bird body part. You will need a sealable plastic bag. Bags like birds and their gizzards come in various sizes. A sandwich size bag is the perfect size for a model of a chicken's gizzard, which is about the size of a chicken egg. Food items can be collected from your kitchen or from the yard. Look for things that birds would like to eat. Fruit, seeds, maybe insects. A helpful tip is to pre-soak any hard items like hard seeds or nuts for several hours in water. This represents gastric juices in the body of the bird. When you assemble your gizzard, you will put one-fourth to one-half cup of sand and pebbles into your bag. Then add several tablespoons of assorted food items. I've added some strawberries, some oranges, and some seeds. Seal the bag tightly and then knead gently for four to five minutes. Here's a bag that I prepared just a while ago and it has already been needed. When you're ready to examine your gizzard, empty your bag onto a paper plate. I'm using a coffee filter to discover the results of your action. You may want to use a hand lens to look more closely. Are you satisfied with your results? If not, continue kneading the bag and check again. Experiment with different size bags. Experiment with different proportions of sand and gravel. Be sure to save one of your models to share during our Zoom celebration on Friday. This activity is from the Flying Wild Educator Guide. It is a project of the Council for Environmental Education and the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies. So now the mystery is solved. You're a gizzard wizard. Let's reflect on the guts of our activity. How does a gizzard help process a bird's food? How might the gizzards of a cardinal which prefers seeds, a robin which prefers worms, and a hummingbird which really loves nectar feel like? How might they be different? In the field, paleontologists have discovered gastroliths. Dig a little deeper and find out what used these gizzard stones and why.