How Many Birds Did God Create?

Okay, God created the birds. But how many birds did He create? There are around 11,000 global species today. Did God create that level of diversity?

Any birder knows the confusion, frustration, and perhaps joy that comes each year when the species lists are revised. In the USA, the American Ornithological Society determines when species should be split or combined. They do this based on continuous study of where the birds live, what sounds they make, their coloration patterns, and even precise genetic research. They sometimes discover that what they thought were two different species really are just variations of the same species; or, what they thought was the same species has birds diverse enough to be considered two or more species.

Practically, this means a birder’s life list could suddenly increase or decrease. In 2023, the northern goshawk was split into the American goshawk and the Eurasian goshawk. One of my birding acquaintances added a new bird to his list without any effort, as he had previously seen the goshawk in both ranges. In 2026, the whimbrel was divided into two species (Hudsonian and Eurasian), and the yellow warbler was split (northern yellow warbler and mangrove yellow warbler). The opposite can also happen; in 2024 the common redpoll and hoary redpoll were lumped together into a single species. These numbers changed the bird names on my list, but not my total number of species. (My yellow warbler has become a northern yellow warbler, and my common redpoll has simply become a redpoll.)

Additionally, in a typical year, 5-10 new birds are discovered globally, mostly in remote jungles. In summary, ornithological organizations recognize that the list of bird species is quite fluid and always changing. The availability and study of molecular data (DNA) has actually complicated the question, as scientists have found unexpected connections (or lack thereof) as well as a complexity in the bird world that they cannot fully classify.

Here’s what the Bible says. “God created … every winged bird after its kind” (Genesis 1:21). God repeats that classification when He talks about the birds Noah was to take onto the ark – “of the birds after their kind” (Genesis 6:20). The word “kind” has to do with portioning or sorting out. God was aware that the birds (and other creatures) could be sorted into logical categories and groupings. Okay, science time. Remember this list? Kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species. Christian scientists commonly believe that the “kind” of the Bible is equivalent to the “family” level of the taxonomy pyramid.

Members of a family (kind) share the same basic characteristics and can interbreed. They might not interbreed often (due to differing geography or habitat), but they can. (Ex. Horse and zebra, horse and donkey.) Over time this interbreeding results in new species; dog breeding has greatly intensified over the past 150 years, resulting in hundreds of new species. While this has been accomplished through purposeful breeding, the same happens naturally on a lesser scale. Over 6,000-10,000 years of history, a lot of species can develop.

When preparations were being made to build the ark replica at the Ark Encounter in Kentucky, groups of scientists created estimates of how many animals were on the ark, based on the premise that God provided 2 (or 7) of each family (kind). Those who researched the birds used field guides and scientific data to make a list of current and recently extinct bird families. Their preliminary list consisted of 196 families (kinds). They eventually decided on 284 families (kinds) of birds on the ark, which added in extinct birds.

In 2025, a “grue” jay caused some excitement in Texas. This was the first known example of a hybrid between a blue jay and a green jay. But if there’s one, I’m sure there are more. This just happened to be the first one that visited a place where it was seen by someone experienced and observant enough to notice. Some species are so well-known for their interbreeding that field guides make note of them: western gulls and glaucous-winged gulls, blue-winged warblers and golden-winged warblers, and mallards and American black ducks. In fact, mallards routinely breed with a wide range of both wild and domestic ducks; those random, unidentifiable “pond ducks” in urban settings likely have mallard breeding, as revealed by their curly black tail feathers. How long will it take before these hybrids are named as new species? How many variants have I perhaps seen without realizing it? Even experienced birders routinely identify birds based on one or two outstanding features, without confirming every single marking on the bird.

For a bit of context regarding the families (kinds), of the 196 families compiled by the Answers in Genesis researchers, twenty of those contain just one species. Most have between 2 and 100, but 26 groups have over 100. Familiar to North American birders are the Parulidae (new world warblers) with approximately 116 species. The Turdidae family (thrushes and allies), which would include bluebirds, American robins, wood thrushes, and veeries, has around 194 species. The largest family is the Passeroidea (sparrow/finch) family, which includes sparrows, finches, orioles, blackbirds, buntings, tanagers, grosbeaks, and cardinals; this has around 1471 species. I have seen numerous species in each of these families. My lifetime list for the USA is 258, but if I go by family (kind), I have around 45.

Perhaps one way to summarize the whole concept of family (kind) in the context of history and emerging species would be to consider what a field guide from 4000 BC might have looked like. The AIG researchers had a final number of 284, so a field guide at the time of the flood might have listed fewer than 300 birds, perhaps showing additional pictures of some of the variety within families. The 11,000 species that we have today have come from those “parent” birds. If you are thinking, “There is no way all our modern birds came from such a small number of ancestors!,” think about how many times you have stood in the woods, trying to distinguish field markings. Is it a white eyebrow or a yellowish eyebrow? Does it have an eye ring or eye arcs? How reddish is the color of brown? How thick are the streaks? Or, sometimes waiting for the bird to vocalize, because two species can be differentiated only by song!

It seems quite likely that God created multiple birds of each kind (at least two!), so that some diversity may have existed even at the time of creation. I think that a feasible answer to the question of how many species of birds God created would be 200-300. I suggest the lower 200 possibility to account for two considerations. First, the AIG research was based on the time of the flood, approximately 1600 years after creation. Second, the AIG researchers listed some birds at distinct family (kind) levels even though they suspected they might actually be part of another family, but any evidence is too far back in history to be confirmed. They erred on the side of more families rather than fewer.

In the end, it is almost a silly question. What difference does it make? We have today the birds that we have today, and we know that they all came from what our masterful God created. I do believe, however, that studying this question has given me greater understanding and a better foundation for understanding bird species.

If this post intrigued you at all, you can probably lose a couple hours of your day by visiting either or both of the websites listed below.

Birdsoftheworld.org/bow/phylogeny (Cornell Lab)

Answersresearchjournal.org/avian-ark-kinds (Answers in Genesis)

Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE ®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.