| 100% | KAKA | 4 | Norfolk ___, an extinct parrot-like bird that inhabited the Norfolk and Phillip islands |
| 60% | RAIL | 4 | Laysan ___, an extinct small flightless bird that inhabited the Northwestern Hawaiian islands |
| 51% | DODO | 4 | Extinct flightless bird that inhabited the island of Mauritius |
| 39% | DODO | 4 | Extinct bird that used to roam the island of Mauritius |
| 37% | MAURITIUS | 9 | Island that was once home to the extinct dodo bird |
| 37% | ECOLOGICAL | 10 | Like the interactions between lifeforms and the environments that they inhabit |
| 36% | TURKEY | 6 | Bird that married the owl and the pussycat |
| 36% | TEAVEE | 6 | "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" surname that sounds like an appliance |
| 35% | PHONETIC | 8 | Like the alphabet that includes the answers to the starred clues ... and an anagram of the eight circled letters |
| 35% | WADERS | 6 | Birds that inhabit mudflats and shorelines |
| 35% | MAN | 3 | "The Old ___ and the Sea," 1952 novella by Ernest Hemingway that is set on an island |
| 35% | MOA | 3 | Extinct bird that resembled the emu |
| 35% | EARLY | 5 | Like the bird that catches the worm |
| 35% | EARLY | 5 | Like the bird that gets the worm |
| 35% | ATASLANT | 8 | Like an escalator, and, aptly, like the six-letter word that begins where 40-Across ends |
| 34% | EMU | 3 | Bird that was the subject of an Australian war |
| 33% | DODO | 4 | Bird that went extinct in the 1600s |
| 33% | BAD | 3 | Like an apple that spoils the bunch |
| 32% | DODO | 4 | Bird that went extinct in the 17th century |
| 32% | BATTERINGMARS | 13 | Making like the meteors that made the Cassini and Copernicus craters? |
| 32% | DODO | 4 | Bird that was endemic to the island of Mauritius |
| 32% | GOOSE | 5 | Bird that looks like a duck and loves water |
| 32% | DOVE | 4 | Bird that carried an olive branch, in the Bible |
| 31% | ALEUTIANS | 9 | Islands that separate the Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea |
| 31% | ERNE | 4 | Bird that's also the name of an Irish river |
| 31% | DODOS | 5 | Flightless birds that became extinct in the 1600s |
| 31% | OLMEC | 5 | Member of an indigenous people that inhabited the Southern Gulf Coast of Mexico |
| 31% | HES | 3 | "___ Just Not That into You," a 2009 romantic comedy featuring an ensemble cast with the likes of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Aniston |
| 31% | DODO | 4 | Flightless bird that was extinct by the early 1700s |
| 31% | MALTA | 5 | Country that includes the islands of Gozo and Comino |