Birds

Australia and its territories are home to over 800 species of bird; about 350 of these are endemic to the zoogeographic region that covers Australia, New Guinea and New Zealand. The fossil record of birds in Australia is patchy; however, there are records of the ancestors of contemporary species as early as the Late Oligocene. Birds with a Gondwanan history include the flightless rarites (the Emu and Southern Cassowary), megapodes (the Malleefowl and Australian Brush-turkey), a huge group of endemic parrots. The Australian Psittaciformes comprises a sixth of the world’s parrots, including many cockatoos and galahs. The Kookaburra is the largest species of the kingfisher family, which has a long history in Australia.

Passerine, peculiar to Australasia, are descended from the ancestors of the Corvi (Crows). Examples include wrens, robins, the magpie group, thornbills, pardalotes, the huge honeyeater family,

Relatively recent colonists from Eurasia are swallows, larks, thrushes, cisticolas, sunbirds, and some raptors, including Australia's raptor, the Wedge-tailed Eagle. A number of bird species have been introduced by humans: some, like the European Goldfinch and Greenfinch, coexist happily with Australian species; others, such as the Common Starling, European Blackbird, House Sparrow and Indian Mynah, are destructive of some native bird species and thus destabilise the native ecosystem.

About 200 species of seabird live on the Australian coast, including many species of migratory seabird. Australia is at the southern end of the East Asian-Australasian flyway for migratory waterbirds, which extends from Far-East Russia and Alaska, through Southeast Asia to Australia and New Zealand. About two million birds travel this route to and from Australia each year. A large and very common seabird is the Australian Pelican which can be found in most waterways in Australia. The Little Penguin is the only species of Penguin that breeds on mainland Australia.