Friday, January 16, 2009

Lovely Birds

Birds are truly beautiful creatures, they are also fascinating and all around us, roosting and nesting on our buildings and feeding in our gardens and refuse dumps, they are easy to find and fun to observe.

Birds are probably the most beloved group of wild animals on the planet. Their ubiquitous presence, colourful form, intelligent actions and cheeky mannerisms endear them to us all. Birds are easy to love. The existence of societies like the National Audubon Society of America with 550 000 members and the RSPB, originally of the UK, with over 1,000,000 members are a testament to how popular birds are.

Some Amazing Bird Facts


There are about 9 703 species of birds divided up into 23 orders, 142 families and 2 057 genera (Sibley and Monroe 1992).
Birds can be found on all major land masses from the poles to the tropics as well as in or over all our seas and oceans and their accompanying islands.

The total number of birds on the planet is very difficult to estimate because their populations fluctuate seasonally, but scientists have suggested that there may be between 100,000 and 200,000 million adult or near adult birds on the planet at any one time. Of these the most common or populous wild bird in the world is the Red-billed Quelea (Quelea quelea) from south of the Sahara in Africa. These birds are so prolific that they are serious pests of grain and millions are killed at roost sites every year in a vain attempt to control their numbers.

The Rarest Birds

The rarest bird in the world is much harder to estimate because though a large number of birds are rare, in most cases the exact number of birds left living for any given species is impossible to ascertain. Some species have been rare for a long time. These include the Sudanese Red Sea Cliff Swallow (Hirundo perdita) seen once in 1984 and the Orange-necked Partridge (Arborophila davidi) seen once in 1927. Other birds are known or believed to be extinct in the wild but still have some representatives living in captivity. A good example of this is the Spix's Macaw (Cyanopsitta spiscii) hunted to the brink of extinction to satisfy the foolish demands of the pet trade.

Since the 1600s at least 115 species of bird are known to have gone extinct, mostly as a result of human interference of one sort or another. However, we humans are not all bad and sometimes the good guys win. Some prime examples of this are the Mauritius Kestrel (Falco punctatus) once down to 4 wild individuals, but now there are more than 300, and the Californian Condor (Gymnogyps californianus) which after the last wild male was caught in 1987 was down to 27 individuals all in captivity. By 1994 captive breeding had brought the population up to 75 with 9 in the wild.

The most common Birds

The most common bird in the world is probably the Red Junglefowl(Gallus gallus) most regularly seen as the common domestic chicken and then called Gallus gallus domesticus, or in some places Gallus domesticus.
The most widespread and commonly seen wild bird in the world is probably the European House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) which has been transported all over the world by European settlers and can now be found on 2/3 of the land masses of the world including New Zealand, Australia, N. America, India and of course Europe.
The other contender is the Red-billed Quelea (Quelea quelea) of Africa, whose population, while restricted to a part of Africa where it is considered a serious pest by farmers is estimated to be around 1.5 billion birds.