subject: Birds of Australiaa [print this page] Here you can find many varieties of birds which are very beautiful, attractive and humming sounds all over the rainforest. Australia holds nearly800 species of bird and the size of these birds range from tiny Weebill to the flightless Emu which is the biggest bird.
Many species of the birds are very attractive with beautiful and soft feathers. Basically, Australian birds are grouped into six main categories and they are
Old endemics: These birds are non-passeriform bird that holds Gondwanan origin, such as emus, cassowaries and parrots that are huge in size.
Corvid radiation: Preaching birds which are peculiar to this continent and it is from the corvid family, like wrens, magpies, robins, and pardalotes.
Eurasian colonists: These birds are from Eurasia, some examples are plovers, swallows, sunbirds and some raptors
Recent introductions: The birds which are named recently, such as Blackbird, Common Starling, the Common Myna and House and Tree Sparrows.
Migratory shorebirds: Scolopacidae and Charadriidae family birds that visit Australia during non-breeding season
Seabirds: birds that breed on islands or in Territory, such as group of petrels, albatrosses, sulids, and cormorants.
Most of the birds in this continent seem to be familiar for tourists who come from the northern hemisphere, this is because some birds, such as jenny wrens that found in Australian have the same appearance of northern hemisphere wrens and even the Australian wrens acts in the same way like northern hemisphere wrens. Another example is Australian robins which have close resemblance with robins that are found in the northern hemisphere, it is not because the cause of genetic relatedness but it is because of convergent evolution.
Here are some birds you will come across during you Australia travel that have resemblance with Northern hemisphere species because of convergent evolution: honeyeater bird that resembles sunbirds, Australasian babblers have the resemblances of scimitar babblers, sittellas birds resembles of nuthatches, scrub robins seem to have the resemblances of thrushes and so on.
