Good call on the cassowary! You are my new knight!
That’s an eggs-ellent suggestion! 
Bird species exist with the names Kingbird, Queen Carola Parotla, Red bishop, Kinghtengale, and Rook. But Pawn remains elusive. But many birds names are e-pawn-ymous.
I was gonna post in this thread but all the birds I was gonna use have all been mentioned and are paired with the piece I was going to pair them to. Interesting.
Really, Colibri? What bird can move readily in any direction and is mean as hell, gram for gram? That bird should be Queen.
Another bird I was going to suggest was the King Vulture. Spectacular-looking, but it doesn’t have talons and can’t kill on its own.
Maybe so, but it would be difficult to pick up and move the piece without tweezers.
You are assuming that the pieces would be to life-scale. Normal chess pieces are not to life-scale (when is a guy on a horse 7/8[sup]ths[/sup] the height of a castle turret?) I think you could tweak the scale to work – or set the bird on a tall perch of some sort.
My suggestion for pawn is the ubiquitous LBB.
That was what is commonly known as a joke.
I’m thinking of some combinations now, like the knight could be a Dookie bird riding on a turtle BC style.
I have to bring the Emperor Penguin back as King of choice as it is flightless and does not move far, but is powerful, and is stately dressed much better fit for the Chess King then the Eagle. Eagle perhaps as queen, though we normally assume male for a eagle, but the power, majesty and range, eagle fits well here.
My updated list:
King: Emperor Penguin
Queen: Swan
Bishops: Peregrine Falcon
Knight: Cassowary
Rooks: Rooks (I don’t like it, but I’m being overruled)
Pawns: Chickens
I’d consider the change from Penguin to Peacock for the King. Yeah, with the Penguin you’ve got the waddling around impotently like the King does. But that’s not what a Penguin is for. A Penguin is for swimming, and when they’re swimming they aren’t comical impotent waddlers, they’re rock stars.
Peacock is perfect for the king. Vain, useless, pretty, can’t fly very well, walks around slowly. Much better fit.
I could get down with using a peacock as the king.
Thoughts from the crowd?
Kings are useful in the endgame?
When you decide on your final pieces be sure to check out Thingiverse which is a online library of free models that can be 3d printed. There are some beautiful swans on there and some nice falcons. Some of the more obscure birds you may be better off finding a pewter one or some other nice piece then scanning it.
Enjoy,
Steven
I think this is absolutely brilliant. Besides, pawns traditionally have a round knob on top which can be construed as an egg. The plinth the knob rests on could even be thought of as a fancy eggcup.
If not eggs, I like Sailboat’s idea of using pigeons.
You can’t have an endgame without one!