Warren King, age 12, of Wichita, Kansas,for his question:
How many bird species are there?
The birds, of course, are wild creatures who get along very well without us. But from our point of view, what a sorry world it would be without them! About 5,000 different mammals belong to our planet and it is no great problem to tell one species from another. There are about 9,000 bird species and even a dedicated bird watcher may confuse, say, a catbird and a mockingbird. However, among most species there are enough differences to keep a bird buff busy through several lifetimes.
Possibly a few unknown birds exist in impassable jungles and on remote islands. But the 9,000 or so species already named and classified most likely include all members of the bird world. Most of them are elfin creatures of great beauty and many are downright gorgeous. And every species, of course, fulfills a vital role in the scheme of nature, living a give and take existence with its environment.
After counting them, the fascinating work really begins when we classify them in groups. Ornithologists list them in the animal Class Aves, meaning the birds. They subdivide the big feathery class into orders of similar birds and the more closely related groups into families and genera, plural of genus. Each member of a genus is an individual species. Each group has a scientific name, usually with hidden clues.
For example, the elegant American robin is in the Order Passeriformes the sparrow type groups that includes more than half the birds in the world. Isis family is Turdidae, which groups him with the pretty bluebirds and the throaty thrushes. Isis genus is Turdus. His species name is Turdus migratorius which tells us that he is a thrush type bird who migrates with the seasons.
Classifications of this sort are interesting to experts. But the average bird lover may prefer other grouping systems. For example, a list of our tuneful songbirds includes the robin and various thrushes, cardinals and kinglets, warblers and vireos, catbirds and the star of the glee club the one and only mockingbird.
The swans and most of the ducks and geese belong to inland waters. The guillemots, puffins and penguins belong to the saltwater areas, as do, usually, the gulls. Then there are gorgeous groups that belong to the tropics, groups of insect eaters and grain eaters, groups that stay home and groups that migrate.
The average bird lover also may be interested in records. For example, the largest bird is a 350 pound ostrich who stands eight feet tall. The smallest is the bitsy bee hummingbird of Cuba. This little beauty is two inches long and a group of ten of his kinfolk weighs one whole ounce.
The fastest fliers are duck hawks and golden eagles, the fastest runner is the ostrich. The wandering albatross has the widest wingspread and the condor is the bulkiest flying bird. The greatest traveler is the Arctic tern, who migrates between the Arctic and the Antarctic. And the smartest member of the bird world, so they say, is that sassy old crow in the corn patch.