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Welcome to Avibase

Avibase is an extensive database information system about all birds of the world, containing over 5 million records about 10,000 species and 22,000 subspecies of birds, including distribution information, taxonomy, synonyms in several languages and more. This site is managed by Denis Lepage and hosted by Bird Studies Canada, the Canadian copartner of Birdlife International. Avibase has been a work in progress since 1992 and I am now pleased to offer it as a service to the bird-watching and scientific community.

Enter a bird name (or partial bird name) in any language or select a bird family below to find a taxon. You can use % as a wildcard in the middle of the name to replace any characters (eg, colo%red will return coloured and colored).

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Number of records currently in Avibase: 4,656,911 - Last update: 2010-09-07

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2010-09-05: I have finished reviewing all country checklists for South America, based on the most current SACC taxonomy, and the country checklists available on their web site. This is a major update affecting 18 regions and many subnational areas.

2010-09-05: I have just completed a full review of all US state checklists. I owe a big thank to Patrick Toomey for his help in reviewing those! The lists should now be more closely aligned with the official state checklists published by the various avian records commitee. That said, there are still a few inconsistencies, particularly due to the fact that each checklist committee has their own rules for whether or not a category is officially part of the list or not, and how those are handled.

2010-09-04: A new study suggests that the disjunct African and Indian populations of Salpornis spilonota (Spotted Creeper) should be treated a 2 distinct species: Salpornis spilonota and Salpornis salvadori. The paper, written by Tietze and Martens is published in the most recent edition of Verterbrate Zoology.

2010-09-03: I have now completed a substantial review of the Taiwan checklist, which included almost 100 species that were not originally listed. I have also created new checklists for the main island of Taiwan, Matsu and Kingman, based on the checklist recently published by the Chinese Wild Bird Federation.

2010-08-31: I have just completed a major review of the Colombian checklist. An annotated version is available on the ProAves web site.

2010-08-25: A recent paper suggests that the Indian form of the Water Rail (Rallus aquaticus indicus) should be treated as a distinct species: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2148/10/226.

2010-08-22: A new species of Tapaculo has been described in June edition of Revista Brasileira de Ornitologia. The bird, called Scytalopus petrophilus (Rock Tapaculo) is restricted to the southern section of the Espinhaço Range in Minas Gerais, Brazil. It is most closely related to the S. novacapitalis complex. Source: Whitney, M. Ferreira de Vasconcelos, L.F. Silveira and J.F. Pacheco. 2010. Scytalopus petrophilus (Rock Tapaculo): a new species from Minas Gerais, Brazil. Revista Brasileira de Ornitologia, 18(2):73-88.

2010-08-22: I have just posted a revised version of the Kentucky checklist.

2010-08-22: The AOU checklists on Avibase are now updated to include changes from the 51th supplement. Also, the AOU published a corridendum to their supplement reverting to the name Black Scoter for the North American species. The name of the Eurasian form is now Common Scoter.

2010-08-14: I have posted a new version of the Aleutian checklist, which should now be up relatively to date.

2010-07-29: The American Ornithologist's Union just published their 51th supplement to their checklist. This is always something I look forward to every summer. There are very many changes this year, particularly affecting the higher taxonomic levels and the species arrangements. Here are a few highlights. Eight new species are added: Swinhoe's Storm-Petrel, Little Bittern, Purple Heron, Eurasian Spoonbill, Collared Pratincole, White-crested Elaenia, Rufous-tailed Robin, and Yellow-hooded Blackbird, all from recently accepted vagrant records. Several species are split, three of them from extralimital forms: Black Scoter (from Common Scoter in Eurasia), White-tailed Trogon (from Green-backed in South America), Gartered Trogon (from Violaceous in South America), 4 of them are split into a total of 10 new species: Whip-poor-will becomes Eastern and Mexican Whip-poor-will, Greater Antillean Oriole becomes Bahama, Cuban, Hispaniolan and Puerto Rican Oriole, Elepaio becomes Kauai, Oahu and Hawaii Elepaio and Winter Wren becomes Winter and Pacific Wren, and is also split from the Eurasian Wren.

Many species are assigned to different genus, and many new genus are introduced or ressurected: Psilorhinus (Brown Jay), Peucea (8 species of sparrows: Cinnamon-tailed, Rufous-winged, Stripe-headed, Black-chested, Bridled, Botteri's, Cassin's and Bachman's), Oreothlypis (8 species of warbler: Tennessee, Orange-crowned, Nashville, Virginia's, Colima, Lucy's Warbler, Flame-throated and Crescent-chested) Parkesia (Louisiana and Northern Waterthrushes) and Rhynchophanes (McCown's Longspur).

The Blue-winged Warbler's latin name is now Vermivora cyanoptera, and several sparrows (Emberizidae) belonging to the genus Atlapetes, Pipilo, Aimophila and Melozone, have been reorganized.

Four new orders are introduced (Phaethontiformes, Suliformes, Accipitriformes, and Eurypygiformes) and no less than 11 new families are also introduced or restored: Pandionidae (Osprey), Capitonidae (Barbets), Semnornithidae (Toucan-Barbet), Polioptilidae (Gnatcatchers), Cettiidae (Bush Warblers), Phylloscopidae (Leaf Warblers), Acrocephalidae (Reed Warblers), Donacobiidae (Donacobius), Megaluridae (Grassbirds), Calcariidae (Snow Buntings and Longspurs), and Viduidae (Whydahs). Several families are also moved into different orders, and several changes of species sequences are also necessary.

In summary, there are many changes affecting the higher levels of classifications and the taxonomic affinities. Those looking for armchair ticks should pay attention to Pacific/Winter Wren, Eastern/Mexican Whip-poor-will, the Greater Antillean Oriole complex and the Elepaio from the Hawaiian Islands. Those travelling a little further afield may also get a few extra ones, such as the 2 trogons or the American scoter.

The full list and supplement should normally be available from the AOU web site shortly. You can also see a full comparison of the new version against earlier ones on this Avibase comparison tool.

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