The brolga, formerly known as the native companion, is a bird in the crane family. It has also been given the name Australian crane, a term coined in 1865 by well-known ornithologist John Gould in his Birds of Australia.
The black crowned crane is a part of the family Gruidae, along with its sister species, the grey crowned crane. It is topped with its characteristic bristle-feathered golden crown. It is usually found in the shallow wetlands of sub-Saharan Africa during the wet season, which act as its principal breeding, feeding and roosting sites although it can also be found foraging in grasslands and near croplands of dry savanna.
The northern shoveler, known simply in Britain as the shoveler, is a common and widespread duck. It breeds in northern areas of Europe and across the Palearctic and across most of North America, wintering in southern Europe, the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, Central, the Caribbean, and northern South America. It is a rare vagrant to Australia. In North America, it breeds along the southern edge of Hudson Bay and west of this body of water, and as far south as the Great Lakes west to Colorado, Nevada, and Oregon.
The black stork is a large bird in the stork family Ciconiidae. It was first described by Carl Linnaeus in the 10th edition of his Systema Naturae. Measuring on average 95 to 100 cm from beak tip to end of tail with a 145-to-155 cm (57-to-61 in) wingspan, the adult black stork has mainly black plumage, with white underparts, long red legs and a long pointed red beak. A widespread but uncommon species, it breeds in scattered locations across Europe, and east across the Palearctic to the Pacific Ocean. It is a long-distance migrant, with European populations wintering in tropical Sub-Saharan Africa, and Asian populations in the Indian subcontinent. When migrating between Europe and Africa, it avoids crossing the Mediterranean Sea and detours via the Levant in the east or the Strait of Gibraltar in the west. An isolated, non-migratory, population occurs in Southern Africa.
The blue-winged teal is a species of bird in the duck, goose, and swan family Anatidae. One of the smaller members of the dabbling duck group, it occurs in North America, where it breeds from southern Alaska to Nova Scotia, and south to northern Texas. It winters along the Pacific and Atlantic coasts and south into the Caribbean islands and Central America.
The piping plover is a small sand-colored, sparrow-sized shorebird that nests and feeds along coastal sand and gravel beaches in North America. The adult has yellow-orange-red legs, a black band across the forehead from eye to eye, and a black stripe running along the breast line. This chest band is usually thicker in males during the breeding season, and it is the only reliable way to tell the sexes apart. The bird is difficult to see when it is standing still, as it blends well with open, sandy beach habitats. It typically runs in short, quick spurts and then stops.
The wattled crane is a large, threatened species of crane found in wetlands and grasslands of eastern and southern Africa, ranging from Ethiopia to South Africa. It is sometimes placed in the monotypic genus Bugeranus.
The sedge warbler is an Old World warbler in the genus Acrocephalus. It is a medium-sized warbler with a brown, streaked back and wings and a distinct pale supercilium. Sedge warblers are migratory, crossing the Sahara to get from their European and Asian breeding grounds to spend winter in Africa. The male's song is composed of random chattering phrases and can include mimicry of other species. The sedge warbler is mostly insectivorous.
The spur-winged goose is a large bird in the family Anatidae, related to the geese and the shelducks, but distinct from both of these in a number of anatomical features, and therefore treated in its own subfamily, the Plectropterinae. It occurs in wetlands throughout sub-Saharan Africa.
The spoon-billed sandpiper is a small wader which breeds on the coasts of the Bering Sea and winters in Southeast Asia. This species is highly threatened, and it is said that since the 1970s the breeding population has decreased significantly. By 2000, the estimated breeding population of the species was 350–500.
Levaillant's cisticola, also known as the tinkling cisticola, is a small passerine bird which is native to marshlands in the uplands of Africa, southwards of the equator.
Flufftails are small birds related to rails and finfoots. There are nine species, seven of which are distributed across sub-Saharan Africa, with the remaining two in Madagascar. The genus was long placed with the rail family Rallidae, but is now placed in the family Sarothruridae, along with three other species of wood rails.
The Madagascar snipe is a small stocky wader. It breeds only in the humid eastern half of Madagascar, from sea-level up to 2,700 m, being more common above 700 m. It is non-migratory.
The Malagasy sacred ibis is a relatively large, heavily built ibis endemic to the west coast of Madagascar, and Aldabra on the Seychelles.
The striped flufftail is a species of bird in the flufftail family Sarothruridae. It is also known as the red-tailed flufftail. The species is closely related to the Madagascar flufftail. The species has a disjunct distribution across the Afromontane of southeastern Africa, with two subspecies. The nominate subspecies S. a. affinis is found in eastern South Africa and Eswatini. S. a. antonii, named for German ornithologist Anton Reichenow, is found in eastern Zimbabwe and Mozambique, Malawi, southern Tanzania, Kenya and the south of South Sudan.
The red-chested flufftail is a species of bird in the family Sarothruridae. It is found in sub-Saharan Africa from Liberia to Ethiopia and south to South Africa.
The nature conservation site Poda was declared a protected area in 1989 by the Bulgarian Ministry of Water and Environment. It was the first protected area in Bulgaria that is completely managed and maintained by a non-governmental organization, the Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds(BSPB). BSPB prepares and implements activities adopted by the Council of Minister's Management Plan, but receives its funding completely from entrance fees, souvenirs sold, and donations. Through this arrangement, it aims to be a sustainable model for nature conservation, environmental education, and eco-tourism.
The San Luis National Wildlife Refuge Complex is located in the northern San Joaquin Valley, within Merced County and Stanislaus County of California. The complex, with four federal National Wildlife Refuges, is managed by the U.S Fish & Wildlife Service.
Marievale Bird Sanctuary is a protected area in Gauteng, South Africa. It is about 15 km2 in size, and situated on the East Rand on the southern half of the Blesbokspruit wetland, a Ramsar site. The Blesbokspruit is a major perennial river in Gauteng which is flanked by extensive floodplains on either side. Nearby is the Suikerbosrand Nature Reserve.
Sarothruridae is a family of small- to medium-sized ground-living birds found mostly in Madagascar and sub-Saharan Africa, with the genus Rallicula being restricted to New Guinea and the Moluccas. The species in this family were once considered to sit with the larger rail family Rallidae.
