Variety of Birds

God is creative, and there is amazing variety among the many birds He created. God Himself openly acknowledged this variety when He spoke of the birds that would go onto the ark. “They and every beast after its kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth after its kind, and every bird after its kind, all sorts of birds” (Genesis 7:14).

“All sorts of birds” seems like a totally appropriate description. While numbers vary, most organizations recognize around 250 different bird families. Before we take that 250 and make it more complicated, let’s first make it less complicated.

Those 250 families can be divided into broad categories. Different people and agencies have somewhat differing categories, but I think the simplest version comes down to five major divisions, which can be distinguished mostly by the design of the birds’ feet.

Perching birds. These are also known as passerines or songbirds. The feet of these birds have three toes facing forward and one toe facing backward, designed for perching on branches or tree trunks. Some passerines (including robins, sparrows, starlings, and crows) spend some of their time on the ground, but passerines are most often seen perched in a tree or bush, or clinging to a stalk of grass. Sixty percent of all birds fall into this huge group, which includes finches, thrushes, wrens, corvids, warblers, woodpeckers, sparrows, and much more.

Hunting birds. These are also known as raptors or birds of prey. Raptors have a hooked beak and eight sharp talons that are designed for their carnivorous lifestyle. These birds often sit high in a tree or mountain or soar through the sky, watching for prey; when they spot a meal, they swoop down to capture it. This group includes eagles, hawks, falcons, kites, owls, osprey, and vultures.

Swimming birds. These birds usually have webbed feet, as well as having bills that are either broad for scooping up food or pointed for spearing it. This group includes geese, swans, ducks, grebes, penguins, and pelicans. Some people also place herons in this group, although in my opinion, they might better fit into the next group.

Walking birds. Shorebirds might be a better designation for this group, but if we are focused on function, these birds have feet (and legs) designed for walking, especially through water, mud, or sand. This group includes the birds that walk on the beach or in mudflats or wetlands. This would include sandpipers, seagulls, plovers, terns, flamingos, storks, and ibises.

Game birds. Ideally, the birds in this category might be integrated into the groups above. Practically, however, they are birds that are traditionally raised or hunted for food. These are primarily walking birds, although only some of them are flightless. This group includes ostriches, emus, turkeys, chickens, grouse, pheasants, quail, and kiwi.

Just in these broad categories of function, we can see that there is already a lot of variety. God recognized the different categories of birds, as well as the fact that each category contained variety. “I will give you as food to every kind of predatory bird and beast of the field” (Ezekiel 39:4). Here He refers to various kinds of predatory birds.

Lumping all birds into five categories is simplified. Expanding the birds into 250 families is more complex, but still fairly simple. Each of those bird families can have dozens or even hundreds of subfamilies. The most complex group are the perching birds; there are over 6,000 species included. That’s a lot of variety! Almost all of these are twelve inches or smaller (ravens, crows, and magpies excluded), but there is a vast difference between a tiny hummingbird and a large raven. To the “starter” list in an earlier paragraph (finches, thrushes, wrens, corvids, warblers, woodpeckers, sparrows), we could add pittas, flycatchers, treecreepers, antbirds, honeyeaters, broadbills, shrikes, woodcreepers, bowerbirds, hummingbirds, asities, cotingas, manakins, ovenbirds, gnateaters, lyrebirds, bowerbirds, larks, swallows, babblers, kinglets, buntings, cardinals – and our list is still not complete.

Furthermore, the list above gives family names. Each family can contain dozens or even hundreds of different species. The tyrant flycatchers alone have over 450 species. Twenty additional passerine families are comprised of at least 100 different species. So much variety! A family familiar in the US would be the New World sparrows, which includes 135 species. Many birders express frustration with what they call LBJs, or “little brown jobs.” Just in the eastern US, this list includes song sparrow, Lincoln’s sparrow, swamp sparrow, fox sparrow, Bachman’s sparrow, chipping sparrow, American tree sparrow, field sparrow, Savannah sparrow, vesper sparrow, Henslow’s sparrow, grasshopper sparrow, white-throated sparrow, white-crowned sparrow, dark-eyed junco, and eastern towhee, (plus a couple coastal and/or Florida sparrows).

Admittedly, most people are not going to fully appreciate bird diversity by considering LBJs! So let’s talk about variety. Just to reference a few other verses, God refers to “birds of every kind” (Ezekiel 17:23), “every kind of bird” (Ezekiel 39:17), and “all kinds of … birds of the air” (Acts 10:12). What would that include? It would include the bee hummingbird, from Cuba, just 2.25 inches long; it would include the common ostrich at 9 feet; and it would include everything in between.

As far as variety, God created some pretty unusual birds. Here are just a few.

Hummingbird – hovers, flaps 80 times per second, flies backwards and upside down

Wood duck and harlequin duck – elaborately painted faces and bodies

Sugarbird – long, sweeping tail is twice as long as the body

Hamerkop – “hammerhead,” named for the unusual shape of its head

Hoopoe – crown of feathers above the head can be fanned out like a headdress

Parrot – playful face shapes, unusual bills, flamboyant colors

Toucan – really big and really colorful beaks

Pelican – large beak with expandable throat pouch for carrying fish

Secretary bird – four-foot-tall chicken-looking carnivore on super-long legs

Flamingo – long legs, long curved neck, large body, unthinkable color of pink

Penguin – fat, (mostly) snow-dwelling, tiny flappers for wings, hardly any legs

Peacock – extravagant color, totally over-the-top design

Cassowary – 5-6 feet tall, flightless, colorful wattles, wedge on top of head

Variety is what makes birding fun. Generally speaking, birds of a feather flock together. A flock of birds is likely to be homogenous – or MOSTLY homogenous. One of my favorite birding tips is “Look for the one that’s different.” The careful examination of a similar-looking flock can reveal that a special bird or two is included. How exciting to find a common goldeneye among the lesser scaups, a dunlin hiding among the least sandpipers, one magnolia warbler accompanying the black-throated green warblers, or a bank swallow mixed into a line of tree swallows!

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.