<<Up     Contents

European birds

In this article, Europe refers to the geographical continent, not the somewhat larger Western Palearctic, which includes parts of the Middle East and north Africa.

There are about 700 species of bird in the area, and in general the avifauna is similar to Asia north of the Himalayas, which shares the same ecozone. There are also many groups shared with North America.

Conversely, many of the southern hemisphere groups, including the ancient flightless Struthioniformes (ostrich family), and their relatives the tinamous are not represented at all.

European birds include the following families:

Gaviiformes

Podicepiformes

Procellariiformes

Pelecaniformes

Ciconiiformes (American taxonomists often include all the raptors in this family.)

Anseriformes

Accipitriformes (Some classifications also include the Falconidae.)

Falconiformes (Sometimes included in the Accipitriformes.)

Galliformes

Gruiformes

Charadriformes

Pterocliformes

Columbiformes (Worldwide; 300 species.)

Psittaciformes

Cuculiformes

Strigiformes

Caprimulgiformes

Apodiformes

Coraciiformes

Piciformes

Passeriformes perching birds

The links above lead to family accounts and hence to individual species. Taxonomy is very fluid in the age of DNA analysis, so other arrangements may be found.

See also Australian birds, British birds

wikipedia.org dumped 2003-03-17 with terodump