Was going to present this as a pop quiz, but I’m too excited by the results.

I found a website http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/species/search
that allows me to plot world maps (and more localised maps) of bird species range distributions. It’s not perfect in that many marine species don’t have proper maps, but basically the maps are remarkably good.

Discovery number 1.
There are eleven bird species found in large numbers on all six continents (excluding Antarctica obviously). There’s no way I would have been able to guess all these. They are, in no particular order:

Ruddy Turnstone, Pomarine Jaeger, Barn Owl, Barn Swallow, House Sparrow, Peregrine Falcon, Black-winged Stilt, Osprey, Great White Egret, Common Tern, Cattle Egret.

I’ve made up about 40 maps. The one below is for the Peregrine Falcon.

Discovery Number 2.

For at least 95% of birds that migrate yearly from breeding grounds to non-breeding grounds, as recently as 15,000 years ago, a blink of the eye in evolutionary terms, those breeding grounds didn’t exist, because they were covered in ice sheets. A typical example is the Oriental Plover. That also makes the breeding grounds sensitive to global warming. Remarkably few birds migrate north in the non-breeding season, one such bird is the Sacred Kingfisher.

Discovery Number 3.

A surprising number of birds that in Australia are thought of as sea birds, elsewhere in the world are land birds. An excellent example is the Osprey, see below.

The osprey, one of the birds that is a sea bird in Aus but a land bird elsewhere.

The oriental plover, one of very many birds that breed in the north, and fly south in the non-breeding season.

The sacred kingfisher, one of the very few birds that fly south to breed.

That’s interesting. They should add domestic hens to that list.

We recently visited Osprey House on the banks of the South Pine River. Didn’t see a single osprey. In fact, the only bird we saw was a crow.

Very interesting.
Thanks for this work and for making the resource available, mollwolfumble.

Bubblecar said:

That’s interesting. They should add domestic hens to that list.

There is some question over what counts as domestic animals or not. If pets and stock are counted then there are many more birds that could be said to exist in considerable numbers on all continents.

Discovery number 1.
There are eleven bird species found in large numbers on all six continents (excluding Antarctica obviously). There’s no way I would have been able to guess all these. They are, in no particular order:

Ruddy Turnstone, Pomarine Jaeger, Barn Owl, Barn Swallow, House Sparrow, Peregrine Falcon, Black-winged Stilt, Osprey, Great White Egret, Common Tern, Cattle Egret.

I’ve made up about 40 maps.

Now 50 maps. I’ve put them all on the web at:
http://freepages.misc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~hallsofjamaica/BirdRange.pdf

For birds on all 6 continents, I now have more, I’ve demoted “pomarine jaeger” and added “rock dove”, “sanderling” and “whimbrel”, making 13 species in all.

There are quite large differences between maps of bird range from different sources. For example some maps show no feral pigeons (Rock Dove) in north or south america (including the map from birdlife international), some show feral pigeons in all of north america but none in south america, some show feral pigeons also covering the whole of south america. I’ve gone for a map from wikipedia that shows feral pigeons over the whole of the USA and Mexico, but only in 5 relatively small regions in South America.

And as maps disagree for pigeons, you can bet that they are wildly divergent for lesser known species.

mollwollfumble said:

Bubblecar said:

That’s interesting. They should add domestic hens to that list.

There is some question over what counts as domestic animals or not. If pets and stock are counted then there are many more birds that could be said to exist in considerable numbers on all continents.

Discovery number 1.
There are eleven bird species found in large numbers on all six continents (excluding Antarctica obviously). There’s no way I would have been able to guess all these. They are, in no particular order:

Ruddy Turnstone, Pomarine Jaeger, Barn Owl, Barn Swallow, House Sparrow, Peregrine Falcon, Black-winged Stilt, Osprey, Great White Egret, Common Tern, Cattle Egret.

I’ve made up about 40 maps.

Now 50 maps. I’ve put them all on the web at:
http://freepages.misc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~hallsofjamaica/BirdRange.pdf

For birds on all 6 continents, I now have more, I’ve demoted “pomarine jaeger” and added “rock dove”, “sanderling” and “whimbrel”, making 13 species in all.

There are quite large differences between maps of bird range from different sources. For example some maps show no feral pigeons (Rock Dove) in north or south america (including the map from birdlife international), some show feral pigeons in all of north america but none in south america, some show feral pigeons also covering the whole of south america. I’ve gone for a map from wikipedia that shows feral pigeons over the whole of the USA and Mexico, but only in 5 relatively small regions in South America.

And as maps disagree for pigeons, you can bet that they are wildly divergent for lesser known species.

>>The rock dove has a restricted natural resident range in western and southern Europe, North Africa, and into South Asia. <<

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_dove#Distribution_and_habitat

Apart from the above, the Rock Dove has been introduced worldwide for various reasons, making its detailed distribution of little importance. However, even lesser known bird species in their native habitat would be better known AND recorded.

mollwollfumble said:

Bubblecar said:

That’s interesting. They should add domestic hens to that list.

There is some question over what counts as domestic animals or not. If pets and stock are counted then there are many more birds that could be said to exist in considerable numbers on all continents.

Discovery number 1.
There are eleven bird species found in large numbers on all six continents (excluding Antarctica obviously). There’s no way I would have been able to guess all these. They are, in no particular order:

Ruddy Turnstone, Pomarine Jaeger, Barn Owl, Barn Swallow, House Sparrow, Peregrine Falcon, Black-winged Stilt, Osprey, Great White Egret, Common Tern, Cattle Egret.

I’ve made up about 40 maps.

Now 50 maps. I’ve put them all on the web at:
http://freepages.misc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~hallsofjamaica/BirdRange.pdf

For birds on all 6 continents, I now have more, I’ve demoted “pomarine jaeger” and added “rock dove”, “sanderling” and “whimbrel”, making 13 species in all.

There are quite large differences between maps of bird range from different sources. For example some maps show no feral pigeons (Rock Dove) in north or south america (including the map from birdlife international), some show feral pigeons in all of north america but none in south america, some show feral pigeons also covering the whole of south america. I’ve gone for a map from wikipedia that shows feral pigeons over the whole of the USA and Mexico, but only in 5 relatively small regions in South America.

And as maps disagree for pigeons, you can bet that they are wildly divergent for lesser known species.

>>The rock dove has a restricted natural resident range in western and southern Europe, North Africa, and into South Asia. <<

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_dove#Distribution_and_habitat

Apart from the above, the Rock Dove has been introduced worldwide for various reasons, making its detailed distribution of little importance. However, even lesser known bird species in their native habitat would be better known AND recorded.

PermeateFree said:

mollwollfumble said:

Bubblecar said:

That’s interesting. They should add domestic hens to that list.

There is some question over what counts as domestic animals or not. If pets and stock are counted then there are many more birds that could be said to exist in considerable numbers on all continents.

Discovery number 1.
There are eleven bird species found in large numbers on all six continents (excluding Antarctica obviously). There’s no way I would have been able to guess all these. They are, in no particular order:

Ruddy Turnstone, Pomarine Jaeger, Barn Owl, Barn Swallow, House Sparrow, Peregrine Falcon, Black-winged Stilt, Osprey, Great White Egret, Common Tern, Cattle Egret.

I’ve made up about 40 maps.

Now 50 maps. I’ve put them all on the web at:
http://freepages.misc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~hallsofjamaica/BirdRange.pdf

For birds on all 6 continents, I now have more, I’ve demoted “pomarine jaeger” and added “rock dove”, “sanderling” and “whimbrel”, making 13 species in all.

There are quite large differences between maps of bird range from different sources. For example some maps show no feral pigeons (Rock Dove) in north or south america (including the map from birdlife international), some show feral pigeons in all of north america but none in south america, some show feral pigeons also covering the whole of south america. I’ve gone for a map from wikipedia that shows feral pigeons over the whole of the USA and Mexico, but only in 5 relatively small regions in South America.

And as maps disagree for pigeons, you can bet that they are wildly divergent for lesser known species.

>>The rock dove has a restricted natural resident range in western and southern Europe, North Africa, and into South Asia. <<

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_dove#Distribution_and_habitat

Apart from the above, the Rock Dove has been introduced worldwide for various reasons, making its detailed distribution of little importance. However, even lesser known bird species in their native habitat would be better known AND recorded.

PermeateFree said:

>>The rock dove has a restricted natural resident range in western and southern Europe, North Africa, and into South Asia. <<

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_dove#Distribution_and_habitat

Apart from the above, the Rock Dove has been introduced worldwide for various reasons, making its detailed distribution of little importance. However, even lesser known bird species in their native habitat would be better known AND recorded.

OK. I have to agree with that. Ranges of seabirds are particularly poorly understood. There’s also the problem of at what bird density to draw the line between non-breeding resident and vagrant. I suspect that it would be worthwhile to do more work on where bird species are.

mollwollfumble said:

PermeateFree said:

>>The rock dove has a restricted natural resident range in western and southern Europe, North Africa, and into South Asia. <<

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_dove#Distribution_and_habitat

Apart from the above, the Rock Dove has been introduced worldwide for various reasons, making its detailed distribution of little importance. However, even lesser known bird species in their native habitat would be better known AND recorded.

OK. I have to agree with that. Ranges of seabirds are particularly poorly understood. There’s also the problem of at what bird density to draw the line between non-breeding resident and vagrant. I suspect that it would be worthwhile to do more work on where bird species are.

It is getting a bit late for that.

mollwollfumble said:

Was going to present this as a pop quiz, but I’m too excited by the results.

I found a website http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/species/search
that allows me to plot world maps (and more localised maps) of bird species range distributions. It’s not perfect in that many marine species don’t have proper maps, but basically the maps are remarkably good.

Another excellent website is Handbook of the Birds of the World http://www.hbw.com/
Full information from this website requires subscription, but a lot of information, including worldwide distribution maps, is available free of charge. The search there is easy, just type in any part of the species common name or scientific name to find it and similar species.

I started this trying to find which land bird species has the widest range.

Seabird species with the largest range – Wilson’s Storm Petrel
Landbird species with the largest yearlong residency – Barn Owl
Landbird species with the largest range – Barn Swallow

Is that how you read it?

That’s rather startling and disturbing trio (eg. how did Barn Owls fly across the Atlantic?)

mollwollfumble said:

I started this trying to find which land bird species has the widest range.

Seabird species with the largest range – Wilson’s Storm Petrel
Landbird species with the largest yearlong residency – Barn Owl
Landbird species with the largest range – Barn Swallow

Is that how you read it?

That’s rather startling and disturbing trio (eg. how did Barn Owls fly across the Atlantic?)

>>Phylogenetic evidence shows that there are at least three major lineages of barn owl, one in Eurasia and Africa, one in Australasia and one in the New World, and some highly divergent taxa on islands. Some authorities further split the group, recognising up to five species, and further research needs to be done to clarify the position. There is a considerable variation between the sizes and colour of the approximately 28 subspecies but most are between 33 and 39 cm (13 and 15 in) in length with wingspans ranging from 80 to 95 cm (31 to 37 in). <<

>>Occasionally, some of these birds turn up on Norfolk Island, Lord Howe Island or New Zealand, showing that crossing the ocean is not beyond their capabilities. In 2008, barn owls were recorded for the first time breeding in New Zealand.<<

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barn_owl

Thanks PermeateFree. I’ll follow that up. 28 subspecies seems enormous. I’ll see if I can track down the phylogenetic data.

I still don’t see how it crossed from Europe to America. Unlike other birds that crossed between those continents is isn’t a seabird and doesn’t like cold weather (Bering Strait, ice age).

mollwollfumble said:

Thanks PermeateFree. I’ll follow that up. 28 subspecies seems enormous. I’ll see if I can track down the phylogenetic data.

I still don’t see how it crossed from Europe to America. Unlike other birds that crossed between those continents is isn’t a seabird and doesn’t like cold weather (Bering Strait, ice age).

They could have gone the same way as the Vikings via Iceland and Greenland. For them to be possibly different species (European and American), it obviously happened a long time ago, maybe during a warm period or when prevailing winds were more favorable.

PermeateFree said:

mollwollfumble said:

Thanks PermeateFree. I’ll follow that up. 28 subspecies seems enormous. I’ll see if I can track down the phylogenetic data.

I still don’t see how it crossed from Europe to America. Unlike other birds that crossed between those continents is isn’t a seabird and doesn’t like cold weather (Bering Strait, ice age).

They could have gone the same way as the Vikings via Iceland and Greenland. For them to be possibly different species (European and American), it obviously happened a long time ago, maybe during a warm period or when prevailing winds were more favorable.

I’ve been looking into the subspecies of the Barn Owl, Titus alba, in research articles. What I’ve found is that:

1) “subspecies” is treated as synonymous with colour variation.
2) The six “subspecies” in Europe all interbreed, hybrids are common and variations in colour and size are smooth across Europe rather than stepped.
3) When looking at egg sizes egg shapes and clutch sizes of raptors in Australia, it was found that there was more variation among Barn Owls than among any other common Australian raptor, but there was no observable geographic trend.
4) Occasionally a new Barn Owl subspecies is reported from an island.
5) In terms of colour variation, the Barn Owl of America does not differ significantly from the range of variation found in Europe.
6) There was only one genetic study of Barn Owl subspecies that I could find Genetic divergence analysis of the Common Barn Owl Tyto alba . It found that Cytochrome C variations between individuals in one location (Chile) were greater than geographic variations around the world, but was able to group sequences into three groups, one for the Americas (17 individuals), one for Sweden (2 individuals), and one for Australia (2 individuals). The Australian and American birds were more similar than either to the Swedish birds.