Birdlife Australia Photography

Australia's avifauna includes about 800 species of birds from 25 orders, of which 45% are endemic. Another 165 species of birds are migratory or occasional. The smallest bird is the short-beaked rororiro (Smicrornis brevirostris) from the hornbill family, which weighs only 6 g. The largest species is the flightless casuarina, which grows up to 150 cm in height and can weigh up to 80 kg.
Older rare species include flightless emus, casuarinas, great-crested parrots, and a large group of endemic parrots. Australian parrots make up one sixth of this family worldwide. The most famous of its representatives is the budgerigar, which soon after its discovery became a popular pet all over the world and is now bred in many different colors. Among the most famous and typical representatives of parrots in Australia are cockatoos, including the widespread Corollas. The largest cockatoo species is the Cockatoo Goliath, which is found in Australia only on the Cape York Peninsula. The smallest species of parrot in Australia is the Red-cheeked parrot. The golden-bellied parrot is one of the rarest bird species in Australia with a population of only about 200 individuals. Australia is also home to a number of endemic pigeon species. These include the white-feathered pigeon and the ruddy pigeon.
There are ten species of fisher in Australia. The most famous is, of course, the great kookaburra, the world's largest member of the family. Two of the rarest fishbirds in Australia are the ochre-breasted alcyone galatea, which can be found only on the Cape York Peninsula in northern Queensland, and the lesser torotoro, which lives only in the almost inaccessible, northernmost part of the Cape York Peninsula.
The rainbow bee-eater is the only representative of the bee-eater family in Australia. In Northern Australia, they can be found all year round. Birds living further south are migratory birds that breed there in the summer months from October to March.
The Australian coast is home to more than 200 species of seabirds, including a large number of migratory birds. Australia is at the southern end of the shearwater migration route, stretching from Eastern Russia, Siberia and Alaska through Southeast Asia to Australia and New Zealand. Approximately two million birds travel this route to and from Australia each year.