The great spotted woodpecker is a medium-sized woodpecker with pied black and white plumage and a red patch on the lower belly. Males and young birds also have red markings on the neck or head. This species is found across the Palearctic including parts of North Africa. Across most of its range it is resident, but in the north some will migrate if the conifer cone crop fails. Some individuals have a tendency to wander, leading to the recolonisation of Ireland in the first decade of the 21st century and to vagrancy to North America. Great spotted woodpeckers chisel into trees to find food or excavate nest holes, and also drum for contact and territorial advertisement; like other woodpeckers, they have anatomical adaptations to manage the physical stresses from the hammering action. This species is similar to the Syrian woodpecker.
The European green woodpecker, also known as the yaffle and sometimes called a nickle, is a large green woodpecker with a bright red crown and a black moustache. Males have a red centre to the moustache stripe which is absent in females. It is resident across much of Europe and the western Palearctic but in Spain and Portugal it is replaced by the similar Iberian green woodpecker.
The skimmers, forming the genus Rynchops, are tern-like birds in the family Laridae. The genus comprises three species found in South Asia, Africa, and the Americas. They were formerly known as the scissorbills.
Terns are seabirds in the family Laridae, subfamily Sterninae, that have a worldwide distribution and are normally found near the sea, rivers, or wetlands. Terns are treated in eleven genera in a subgroup of the family Laridae, which also includes several genera of gulls and the skimmers (Rynchops). They are slender, lightly built birds with long, forked tails, narrow wings, long bills, and relatively short legs. Most species are pale grey above and white below with a contrasting black cap to the head, but the marsh terns, the black-bellied tern, the Inca tern, and some noddies have dark body plumage for at least part of the year. The sexes are identical in appearance, but young birds are readily distinguishable from adults. Terns have a non-breeding plumage, which usually involves a white forehead and much-reduced black cap.
The common tern is a seabird in the family Laridae. This bird has a circumpolar distribution, its four subspecies breeding in temperate and subarctic regions of Europe, Asia and North America. It is strongly migratory, wintering in coastal tropical and subtropical regions. Breeding adults have light grey upperparts, white to very light grey underparts, a black cap, orange-red legs, and a narrow pointed bill. Depending on the subspecies, the bill may be mostly red with a black tip or all black. There are several similar species, including the partly sympatric Arctic tern, which can be separated on plumage details, leg and bill colour, or vocalisations.
The black tern is a small tern generally found in or near inland water that breeds in Europe, Western Asia and North America. In winter the birds migrate to coastal areas of Africa and South America.
The black guillemot or tystie is a medium-sized seabird of the Alcidae family, native throughout northern Atlantic coasts and eastern North American coasts. It is resident in much of its range, but large populations from the high arctic migrate southwards in winter. The bird can be seen in and around its breeding habitat of rocky shores, cliffs and islands in single or smalls groups of pairs. They feed mainly by diving towards the sea floor feeding on fish, crustaceans or other benthic invertebrates. They are listed on the IUCN red list as a species of least concern.
The sharp-shinned hawk or northern sharp-shinned hawk, commonly known as a sharpie, is a small hawk, with males being the smallest hawks in the United States and Canada, but with the species averaging larger than some Neotropical species, such as the tiny hawk. The taxonomy is far from resolved, with some authorities considering the southern taxa to represent three separate species: white-breasted hawk, plain-breasted hawk, and rufous-thighed hawk. The American Ornithological Society and some other checklists keeps all four variations conspecific.
The greater crested tern, also called crested tern or swift tern, is a tern in the family Laridae that nests in dense colonies on coastlines and islands in the tropical and subtropical Old World. Its five subspecies breed in the area from South Africa around the Indian Ocean to the central Pacific and Australia, all populations dispersing widely from the breeding range after nesting. This large tern is closely related to the royal and lesser crested terns, but can be distinguished by its size and bill colour.
The Inca tern is a near-threatened species of tern in the subfamily Sterninae of the family Laridae. It is found along the Pacific coasts of Chile, Ecuador and Perú, and has appeared as a vagrant in Central America and Hawaii.
The white-fronted tern, also known as tara, sea swallow, black-billed tern, kahawai bird, southern tern, or swallow tail, was first described by Johann Friedrich Gmelin in 1789. A medium-sized tern with an all-white body including underwing and forked tail, with grey hues on the over the upper side of the wing. In breeding adults a striking black cap covers the head from forehead to nape, leaving a small white strip above the black bill.
The silvered antbird is a passerine bird in subfamily Thamnophilinae of family Thamnophilidae, the "typical antbirds". It is found on Trinidad and in every mainland South American country except Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay.
The Antarctic tern is a seabird in the family Laridae. It ranges throughout the southern oceans and is found on small islands around Antarctica as well as on the shores of the mainland. Its diet consists primarily of small fish and crustaceans. It is very similar in appearance to the closely related Arctic tern, but it is stockier, and it is in its breeding plumage in the southern summer, when the Arctic tern has shed old feathers to get its non-breeding plumage. The Antarctic tern does not migrate like the Arctic tern does, but it can still be found on a very large range. This tern species is actually more closely related to the South American tern.
The black tinamou is a species of ground bird found in humid foothill and montane forest in the Andes of South America.
The African skimmer is a species of bird belonging to the skimmer genus Rynchops in the family Laridae. It is found along rivers, lakes and lagoons in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The snowy-crowned tern, also known as Trudeau's tern, is a species of bird in subfamily Sterninae of the family Laridae, the gulls, terns, and skimmers. It is native to Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, and possibly Paraguay, and also vagrant in Peru and the Falkland Islands.
The Senegal batis is a species of small passerine bird in the wattle-eyes family, Platysteiridae. It occurs in western Africa where it is found in dry savanna and subtropical or tropical dry shrubland. It was originally given the binomial name Muscicapa senegalensis by Carl Linnaeus in 1766.
The white-naped xenopsaris, also known as the reed becard and white-naped becard, is a species of suboscine bird in the family Tityridae, the only member of the genus Xenopsaris. It is found in South America, in humid subtropical and tropical savanna climates in most of the countries east of the Andes: Venezuela, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Argentina. Living in open woodland and other open forest habitats, it is mostly sedentary, though some populations may be migratory. The species, which is closely related to becards and tityras, was thought to be either a tyrant-flycatcher or cotinga, before it was placed in Tityridae.
The Indian skimmer or Indian scissors-bill is one of the three species that belong to the skimmer genus Rynchops in the family Laridae. They are somewhat tern-like but like other skimmers, have a short upper mandible and the longer lower mandible that is ploughed along the surface of water as the bird flies over the water to pick aquatic prey. It is found in southern Asia, where it is patchily distributed and declining in numbers. They are mainly found in rivers or estuaries. They are very brightly marked in black, white and orange, making them difficult to miss.
