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List of bird genera

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

List of bird genera concerns the chordata class of aves or birds, characterised by feathers, a beak with no teeth, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, and a high metabolic rate.

Restless flycatcher in the downstroke of flapping flight
Portrait of a bald eagle, showing its strongly hooked beak and the cere covering the base of the beak.

Eagles, Old World vultures, secretary-birds, hawks, harriers, etc.

Landing mallard drake

Waterfowl

Purple-throated carib feeding at a flower

Swifts, treeswifts and hummingbirds

A Southern brown kiwi.

Hornbills, hoopoes, and wood-hoopoes

A Western red-billed hornbill.

Nightjars, nighthawks, potoos, oilbirds, frogmouths and owlet-nightjars

The Madagascan nightjar is restricted to the islands of Madagascar and the Seychelles.
Red-legged seriema, Cariama cristata

Cassowaries and emus

Southern cassowary

New World vultures

American black vultures on a horse carcass

Plovers, crab plovers, lapwings, seagulls, puffins, auks, sandpipers, buttonquails, stilts, avocets, ibisbills, woodcocks, skuas, etc.

European herring gull

Storks, openbills, and jabiru

Marabou stork at Etosha National Park in Namibia

Mousebirds

Blue-naped mousebird (Urocolius macrourus)

Pigeons and doves

Rock dove in flight

Rollers, bee eaters, todies, kingfishers, etc.

Like many forest-living kingfishers, the yellow-billed kingfisher often nests in arboreal termite nests.

Cuckoos, anis, etc.

Some species, like the Asian emerald cuckoo (Chrysococcyx maculatus) exhibit iridescent plumage.

Sunbitterns and kagu

The sunbittern will open its wings to display two large eye spots when threatened

Falcons and caracara

The laughing falcon is a snake-eating specialist

Gamebirds

Despite its distinct appearance, the wild turkey is actually a very close relative of pheasants
Red-throated loon (G. stellata), the smallest living Gavia species. Some Miocene members of this genus were smaller still.

Cranes, crakes, rails, wood-rails, fluftais, gallinules, limpkin, trumpeters, and finfoots

Rails are one of the most widespread Gruiformes
Male cuckoo roller
The cuckoo roller exhibits a pronounced sexual dichromatism in the plumage.
Subdesert mesite, Monias benschi

Turacos and go-away-birds

Great blue turaco
Corythaeola cristata
Hoatzin at Lake Sandoval, Peru

Bustards, floricans, etc.

Captive specimen of a male great bustard, showing the characteristic long, beard-like feathers and heavy build.
Clockwise from top right: Palestine sunbird (Cinnyris osea), blue jay (Cyanocitta cristata), house sparrow (Passer domesticus), great tit (Parus major), hooded crow (Corvus cornix), southern masked weaver (Ploceus velatus)

Passerines, the "song birds". This is the largest order of birds and contains more than half of all birds.

A brown pelican Pelecanus occidentalis, taken in Santa Barbara, California

Pelicans, ibises, shoebills, egrets, herons, etc.

Red-billed Tropicbird (Phaethon aethereus subsp. mesonauta) in waters around Trinidad & Tobago
James's flamingos at Laguna Colorada in Bolivia
A black-rumped flameback using its tail for support

Woodpickers, flickers, toucans, aracaris, motmots, etc.

Diving grebe

Petrels, storm petrels, albatrosses, and diving petrels

The poorly known New Zealand storm petrel was considered extinct for 150 years before being rediscovered in 2003.

Parrots, parakeets, macaws, and cockatoos

Most parrot species are tropical, but a few species, like this austral parakeet, range deeply into temperate zones.
Pallas's sandgrouse in a field in the Gobi Desert
A flock of rhea in Lenschow, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
Adélie penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae) feeding young. Like its relatives, a neatly bi-coloured species with a head marking.

Owls

Great horned owl perched on the top of a Joshua tree at evening twilight in the Mojave Desert USA.
A male Somali ostrich in a Kenyan savanna, showing its blueish neck

Boobies, gannets, frigatebirds, cormorants, shags, and darters

Little cormorant Phalacrocorax niger
Great tinamou roosting

Trogons and quetzals

A pair of scarlet-rumped trogons, showing sexual dimorphism in the plumage. The female is on the left, male on the right.