Birds

There are some 9,700 species of birds alive today that inhabit a wide range of habitats including wetlands, woodlands, mountains, deserts, tundra, coasts and the open ocean. To better understand the immense diversity of birds, it is useful to examine the main groups of birds. Although there are several different ways experts classify birds into subgroups, on this website we recognize that there are 30 groups of birds:

Albatrosses and petrels, also known as tubenoses, are a group of seabirds that includes albatrosses, fulmars, prions, shearwaters, storm-petrels and diving petrels. Tubenoses are pelagic birds that spend long periods of time foraging over the open ocean. They have a widespread distribution and occur throughout most oceanic regions of the world. Tubenoses return to land only to breed. They select nesting sites on remote islands and on rugged coastal cliffs. There are 107 species of tubenoses.