Australia is comprised of nearly 800 bird species, which vary in their sizes from the little ones as the 8 cm Weebill while the larger ones like the flightless emu. The Australian birds wrens resemble the northern hemisphere wrens in their features as well as behavior and the Australian robins tend to be closely related to the northern hemisphere robins.
However the fact remains that most of the Australian passerines have their ancestors as the crow family and they are similar because of the convergent evolution. The Australian birds, which highlight the convergent evolution with Northern hemisphere species are honeyeater, Australian robins, Australasian babblers, sittellas and scrub robins. The Australian birds are divided into six major classifications like the Old endemics that comprises of non-passerines birds belonging to Gondwanan origin for example cassowaries, emus.
The other category of Australian birds is Corvid radiation which rae classified as Passerines, and are uniquely found in Australasia and are descendants of corvid family like magpies, pardalotes etc. Next one is Eurasian colonists from Eurasia comprising of swallows, birds of paradise to name a few of them. Recent introductions points out towards the birds like European Goldfinch, Common Starling etc that are in latest discovered by man. Migratory shorebirds refers to the suite consisting of waders in the Scolopacidae and Charadriidae that are found in Asia and Alaska, who are in Australasia during their non breeding season.
Seabirds are those category of Australian birds, which include the cosmopolitan birds as albatrosses, sulids, cormorants, who live on islands that are located within Australian boundary or on the coasts as well as in territorial waters. The national organisations dealing with Australian birds are Birds Australia also carrying the name as Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union, which is the most important NGO dealing with birding, ornithlogy as well as conservation. Australian Bird Study Association concentrates on the banders and many other fields ornithologists.
The mailing list of Australian birds on the internet is provided by the organisation namely Birding-Aus. The biggest birdwatcher's organisation is Bird Observation & Conservation Australia comprising of 40 branches as well as affiliate groups. The references that are based on various regions are The Handbook of Australian, New Zealand and Antarctic Birds, The Atlas of Australian Birds, The Action Plan for Australian Birds 2000. The field guides that are in process of printing are Field Guide to Australian Birds, The Slater Field Guide to Australian Birds, Australian Birds: A Concise Photographic Field Guide and many more.
Australian birds
