Bird Groups.

Having discussed the birds firstly from the viewpoint of Food Sources and secondly from the viewpoint of Environment and Habitat I now focus on various ways in which the birds can be presented. At present I don't favour any particular one approach over the others so I am developing them according to my interest at the time. Doing it this way enables me to see how thoughts developed in one approach might influence my thinking in another approach.

Conventional Classification Systems.

One of my aims is to de-mystify some of the ornithological terms which many birders find hard to pronounce let alone understand. In order to achieve this I have been testing out various other ways in which birds can be grouped.

Geographical Grouping.

In this sub-module a brief description of the geographical region occupied by each species is given. I have prepared a table showing the way in which the families and species in the IOC listing are distributed in various parts of the world.

Common Name Groups.

I use common names as listed in Birds of the World, Recommended English Names published by Gill & Wright on behalf of the International Ornithological Congress (IOC). Corresponding scientific names can be found from this document. If you click on Common Name Grouping you can see tables showing the species in each group as a percentage of the world's species. This is work in progress.

I am preparing reviews of various well known groups focussing on observable characteristics which highlight the habitats and behaviour of birds in each group. I am doing this in a separate website which enables me to monitor the website audience and the topics which receive the most interest.

When I started to develop this approach I realised that some groups of birds, like Parrots and Cockatoos, Pigeons and Doves and to a lesser extent Birds of Prey, were likely to present problems. Parrots for instance are listed in 80+ genera and number 359 species. There is no way I want to define sub-habitats and niches for all these birds. However I would like to be able to place them in a few manageable sub-groups. I am developing the information to do this in the various reviews in Birds by Common Name Groups.

Grouping by Ancestral Time Span.

There are over 10,000 species in the current International Ornithological Congress listing. Evolution is a process which takes place over long periods of time, much longer than our own life-times. Some species are a few million years old, quite a few are tens of millions of years old and others have an ancestry which can be traced back at least 90 million years.

Grouping by Counterparts.

When I look at the species found in the Old World and New World some Common Name groups appear to be found in both regions. The general appearance, habitat and behaviour, suggests that these birds are counterparts which would imply that they occupy the same, or very similar habitats, in the two regions. This is work in progress - click on Grouping by Counterparts.