Like most boys, I was always a fan of dinosaurs. The fact they existed was incredible and I read about them, researched them, figured out how to pronounce their latin names, all that stuff. Over the past few years, I have started to get back into researching dinos, and in doing so, I have been reading about how modern birds, birds we see every day, are dinosaurs. I think a lot of people, if you asked, would be very surprised by this. I recall explaining this to my Mom, and she looked at me like I had been drinking.
The bottomline is that the idea that modern birds are dinosaurs is becoming a widely accepted thing. It is not by any means universally accepted. Think about it though: birds are reptiles, their skeletons really do appear to be dino-like. For me, someone with no background in paleo studies, can still accept this as fact. It also gives me more appreciation for nature.
Some neat links:
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/avians.html
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/dinosaur.html
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaurs
