Australian Birds

"Australia - one of the largest islands in the world"!

Watch our Wonderful Birds Flitter and Flutter and Soar

The question most often asked - How many birds are there in Australia?

The answer is no one is quite sure, over 860 have been listed and bird watchers are increasingly finding more as they move into more and more remote areas of Australia.

The history of Australian birds goes back some 50 million years when Australia was apart of Antarctica. This has been deduce this from fossils fond on the main land and from some birds that still carry primitive characteristics living in Australia today. Birds like the emu and cassowary have great ancestors and are related to the related ostrich and rheas.

Australian Birds of today are some of the most unique in the world and well sort after for caged and uncaged pets. Australia has birds that will fit in a closed fist like the weebill, which is only 8cm in size right up to the larger flightless birds like the emu and cassowaries

The Australian Lyrebirds are interesting in the fact that they are only found in Australia and are the worlds best mimics - The male will raise it tail and will mimic calls of other birds and evern micic mobile phone rings and camera clicking to attract females and sproke that this is where he is and this his territorial boundry.

Kingfishers can be heard all over Australia the laughing kookaburra is the best known and is the largest of the kingfishers, with grey. Black and brown blue wiged in colour and has a very distinctive ‘laughing’ call. There are also anumber of smaller more colourful kingfishers with brilliant blue or blue-green on there back. A loverable bird that is well like by all Australians.

Visit the pages on Australian Birds in the AUSSIE BIRDS INDEX