beakful

It means a beakful, that is, the food which the mother bird holds in her beak to give to the nestlings.

Jean Francois Millet Hurll, Estelle M 1900

With a beakful of the smashed wings and broken body armour of a dozen insects, the male bobs and shimmers before leaping into the air, somersaulting over himself, and turning into the hole.

A Year on the Wing TIM DEE 2009

And I will keep reliving these horrifying last days, over and over, until the tiny blackbird has transported that mountain, a beakful at a time, one trip every thousand years.

You've Been Warned Patterson, James, 1947- 2007

But one bird, possibly possessed of more brain, picked up one piece of cheese, then another and then a third - all in the same beakful.

Archive 2006-03-01 2006

But one bird, possibly possessed of more brain, picked up one piece of cheese, then another and then a third - all in the same beakful.

What I cooked last night. 2006

Then Hannah took it, and finally the parody got a beakful.

Pet Peeve Anthony, Piers 2005

Carnal appetite makes one seize a beakful of prey: then up, up again, out of the dense into the ethereal, from the wet into the dry.

Lady Chatterley's Lover 2004

The chicken snatched a bigger beakful of her skin along with the vein and twisted.

Soul of the Fire Goodkind, Terry 1999

The only movement was the sudden whisk of russet-brown as a squirrel scudded up a tree-trunk, and the flight of a blackbird cutting low across the path with a beakful of food for its young.

Rose cottage Stewart, Mary, 1916- 1997

The only movement was the sudden whisk of russet-brown as a squirrel scudded up a tree-trunk, and the flight of a blackbird cutting low across the path with a beakful of food for its young.

Rose cottage Stewart, Mary, 1916- 1997