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You might remember these from your childhood, or this might be your first ever encounter with a Drinking Bird. Whether it's nostalgia or new wonder, these birds are a fantastic blend of practical science demonstration and mesmerising action.

Dip his beak in water, and he'll be drinking all day. His dedication to drinking duty will put the most conscientious barfly to shame.

It's amazing the amount of time you can spend just watching him. Regular cries of 'I think he's stopping... no he's not, there he goes' resound around the ShinyShack office. He's the ultimate low maintenance office pet.

How does the Drinking Bird work?

• You wet the drinking bird's head
• Water evaporates from the drinking bird's head
• This cools the drinking bird's head
• Which causes the vapour in the drinking birds' head to condense
• This results in a lower pressure in the drinking bird's head
• Which sucks liquid up from the base of the drinking bird
  
• As liquid flows into the head, the drinking bird becomes top-heavy and tips forward
• When it tips over, the bottom end of the neck tube rises above the liquid in the bottom
• This causes vapour to rise up the tube to the head
• Which pushes liquid back down from the head to the bottom
• The increased weight of liquid in the bottom restores the drinking bird to an upright position

What physics does the Drinking Bird demonstrate?

This one experiment manages to demonstrate a whole range of physical laws, including the combined gas law, the ideal gas law, the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution, the heat of vaporisation, torque, centre of mass, capillary action, and probably a few others.

Is it perpetual motion?

Well, kind of - it will go on indefinitely, but it does rely on an energy input, in the form of heat from the surrounding environment.

The combination of glass and volatile liquid means that the Drinking Bird is not a toy. Kids should wonder at it from a distance.