Birds of Australia
Australia has about 800 species of bird, ranging from the tiny 8 cm Weebill to the huge, flightless Emu.
To the visitor from the northern hemisphere, many will immediately seem familiar - Australian wrens look and act very like northern hemisphere wrens, Australian robins seem to be close relatives of the northern hemisphere robins - but in fact the majority of Australian passerine birds are descended from the ancestors of the crow family, and the close resemblance is misleading: the cause is not genetic relatedness but convergent evolution.
For example, almost any land habitat offers a niche for a small bird that specialises in finding small insects: the form best fitted to that task is one with long legs for agility and obstacle clearance, moderate-sized wings optimised for quick, short flight, and a large, upright tail for rapid changes of direction. In consequence, the unrelated birds that fill that niche in the Americas and in Australia look and act as though they were close relatives.
Very broadly speaking, Australian birds can be classified into four categories:
- Long-established non-passerines of ultimately Gondwanan origin, notably Emus, Cassowaries and the huge parrot group.
- Passerines peculiar to Australasia, descended from the corvid family, and now occupying a vast range of roles and sizes. Examples include wrens, robins, magpies, thornbills, pardalotes, the huge honeyeater family, treecreepers, lyrebirds, birds of paradise and bowerbirds.
- Relatively recent colonists from Eurasia, including swallows, larks, thrushes, cisticolas, sunbirds, and some raptors.
- Birds recently introduced by humans: some, like the European goldfinch and greenfinch coexist happily, others such as European starlings, blackbirds and sparrows and the Indian Mynah are destructive vermin.
Australian birds include the following families:
- Ratites: Three species of emu (two recently extinct) and two species of cassowary.
- Raptors: eagles and hawks, falcons, and owls.
- The dove and pigeon family , including the several Bronzewing pigeons.
- The parrot and cockatoo family, including the Paradise parrot
- The kingfisher family, notably the two kookaburras.
- Tyrannidae tyrant flycatchers
- Acanthisittidae New Zealand wrens
- Pittidae pittas
- Menuridae lyrebirds
- Atrichomithidae scrub birds
- Climacteridae Australian treecreepers
- Maluridae Fairy-wrens
- Meliphagidae honeyeaters and chats
- Pardalotidae pardalotes, scrubwrens, thornbills, and gerygones
- Petroicidae Australian robins
- Orthonychidae logrunners
- Pomatostomidae Australasian babblers
- Cinclosomatidae whipbirds and allies
- Neosittidae sittellas
- Pachycephalidae whistlers, shrike-thrushes, pitohuis and allies
- Dicruridae monarch flycatchers, flycatchers, fantails. the Magpie-lark and the drongos.
- Campephagidae cuckoo shrikes and trillers
- Oriolidae orioles
- Artamidae wood swallows, butcherbirds, currawongs and Australian magpie
- Puidisaeidae birds of paradise
- Corvidae crows and jays
- Corcoracidae the White-winged Chough and the Apostlebird
- Laniidae shrikes
- Ptilonorhynchidae bowerbirds
- Turnagridae Piopio
- Alaudidae larks
- Motacillidae wagtails and pipits
- Prunellidae hedge sparrows
- Passeridae sparrows and Australian finches
- Fringillidae true finches
- Emberizidae buntings and American sparrows
- Nectarinfidae sunbirds
- Dicaeidae flowerpeckers
- Hirundinidae swallows and martins
- Pycrionotidae bulbuls
- Sylviidae Old World warblers
- Zosteropidae White-eyes
- Muscicapidae Old World flycatchers, thrushes (and chats?)
- Sturnidae starlings
see also European birds