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The aim of thisWikiProject is to set out broad suggestions about how we organise articles aboutbirds and related topics. In general, these are only suggestions, and you shouldn't feel obliged to follow them.
ThisWikiProject aims to help organise our rapidly growing collection of articles about birds. Included in its scope are articles for all known species, genera, families, and orders of birds (bothextant andextinct), as well as articles relating to bird anatomy, physiology, evolution, behaviours, diseases and parasites. Also included are articles relating to the study (ornithology) and the keeping (aviculture) of birds, articles on ornithological organisations, biographies of notable ornithologists and their works, and lists of birds found in various human-defined areas (i.e. countries, states/provinces, counties, etc.).
This WikiProject is an offshoot ofWikiProject Tree of Life.
Related projects include:
These are the articles that have been edited the most within the last seven days. Last updated 16 January 2026.
| Edits | Article | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| 40 | Elephant bird | B |
| 38 | Curlew sandpiper | B |
| 27 | 2026 in archosaur paleontology | List |
| 25 | Jessica Meir | B |
| 24 | List of Late Quaternary prehistoric bird species | List |
| 13 | Buteogallus woodwardi | Stub |
| 13 | Ian J. Mason | Stub |
| 12 | William Lay Thompson | Start |
| 12 | Yellow warbler | C |
| 10 | Collosogavis | Stub |
| 10 | List of birds of Great Britain | List |
| 10 | Macauley Island | GA |
∑ 12 items | Query runtime: 7.23 s | Last updated: 23:25, 16 February 2026 (UTC)
Articles for deletion
Featured article candidates
Good article nominees
Featured article reviews
Requested moves
Articles to be split
The list ofspoken articles concerning WikiProject Birds is foundhere.
Feel free to request assistance with references at thereference request desk and any bird-related assistance on the talk page.
In general, use the formalcommon name for article titles.
Sometimes exceptions need to be made; some individual creatures (usually newly discovered ones) do not yet have a formal common name and some groups are known only by theirscientific name.
Ornithology publications usually capitalise the vernacular name of a species to differentiate it from more general terms.[1] Following discussions, it has been decided that capitals will be used on Wikipedia only for parts of the name that are proper names, consistent with practice in more general-audience publications.[2]
In publications that capitalise, the phrase "in Australia there are many Common Starlings" clearly indicates a large number ofSturnus vulgaris, while the phrase "in Australia there are many common starlings" could indicate several different types of starling being common. Clearer formulation must be used in a non-capitalising publication like Wikipedia: e.g., "in Australia the common starling is numerous", vs. "in Australia many types of starling are common". Add binomial names in round brackets (parentheses) to reduce any ambiguity if necessary.
TheInternational Ornithological Congress (IOC), which has tried tostandardise theEnglish-language vernacular names of birds, uses capitalised names. The IOC names have been used in the vast majority of Wikipedia articles (including their titles),in lower case except where parts of the name refer to a proper noun (e.g.New Zealand scaup). Wikipedia bird article titles may diverge from the IOC list when themost common name in reliable sources is different from the IOC name.[3] A non-IOC name might also be used in article text in a non-ornithological context, e.g. the animal-related folklore of a traditional culture; or in a specific ornithological context, such as the nomenclature of an organisation other than IOC.
| Article title | makeredirects from |
|---|---|
| White-necked raven | White-necked Raven White-Necked Raven |
| Prairie warbler | Prairie Warbler |
When creating a new article for a species, make sure the title is correctly capitalised and create aredirect from the capitalised IOC name. For example, name the articleBald eagle (and write "bald eagle" in the text) but create a redirect to it fromBald Eagle. See the table at right for more examples. You should also create redirects for any names regularly used for distinctive subspecies. For example, redirects forpale-bellied brent goose,light-bellied brent goose,black brant, anddark-bellied brent goose all point to ourbrant (goose) article. In this case, redirect links should also be made for the full scientific names of those subspecies as well.
Perthis discussion and as amended inthis discussion, the consensus style to write the combination of common name plus scientific name in the lead is bolded common name followed by bolded italicised scientific name in parentheses:
Summary of naming guidelines – common names
Summary of naming guidelines – scientific names
It is recommended for the sake of consistency that regional lists are named asList of birds of[Region] rather thanList of[Region-adjective] birds.
Most of the bird species articles have a common structure which include various combinations of the following:
Additional sections may be included to cover aspects that are particularly interesting or well studied in that species.
| Barn swallow | |
|---|---|
 | |
| H. r. rustica | |
Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Passeriformes |
| Family: | Hirundinidae |
| Genus: | Hirundo |
| Species: | H. rustica |
| Binomial name | |
| Hirundo rustica | |
 | |
| Range ofH. rustica Breeding range Resident year-round Non-breeding range | |
In general, bird articles should havetaxoboxes (taxonomyinfoboxes). This is something we have inherited from theWikiProject Tree of Life. There are many examples there to look at.
SeeWikipedia:Automated taxobox system for the full details on constructing a taxobox.
There are several example bird taxoboxes, suitable for cut-and-paste insertion into entries:
Images in bird articles should be added with care and captioned carefully. If the taxobox is empty - consider adding one that shows the full bird, preferably facing into the text. If the species is sexually dimorphic, you may consider adding a second image to the taxobox, or distribute the other images in the text carefully. Do not add images to the lead section. If a bird article is well-illustrated, examine the quality of the images before adding your own, and do not add an image just because you took the picture. If the species has multiple subspecies with distinctive plumage variations, make a note of the features in the caption and the general region (not to the accuracy of a delivery address - accurate locations and dates should be included in the image metadata on Wikimedia Commons). Photos of live birds are preferred in an article's taxobox, but artwork or photos of stuffed specimens can be used if the first are unavailable or of inadequate quality
Illustrate specific behaviours or plumages in the appropriate location. If absolutely necessary, add a gallery towards the end of the article to accommodate multiple images, there is no need to explicitly add a section called "Gallery". The captions ideally need to add value to the text, calling attention to specifics mentioned in the article where possible. If the text flow is being disrupted or if the images are flowing into the reference section, it probably means that there are more images than needed for the article, consider researching and improving the article with more text. Remember that people can always visit the images in the appropriate Commons categories or gallery pages which should linked using the appropriate template at the end of the article.
A good way to show a bird's area of occurrence is to add a distribution map; see the above example on how. Species with tiny areas of occurrence should get larger maps which are displayed thumbnailed.
As for colors, the following are generally accepted as literature standard, for example by theHandbook of Birds of the World:
For species that do not migrate, a single color can be used as in the example. At-sea range of birds likealbatrosses is usually marked in darker or lighter blue. Small islands can be marked with a larger dot and/or shown magnified in inserts. Migration flyways are often indicated with arrows. Areas of irruptive occurrence- more regular and plentiful than casual vagrancy, such as incrossbill species–can be indicated by colored stippling.
It is good to use basic,web-safe colors. If using nonstandard coloration (e.g.Arctic tern orsilvery pigeon), it is important to annotate them. Former ranges of extinct birds can be indicated in dark grey (HBW standard) or red (many other), the former is probably preferable due to unambiguity.
The "HBW standard" colors have one major advantage: they can also, due to differences in brightness, be distinguished by almost all people with some sort ofcolor blindness.
The headlined glossary article (Wikipedia's only featured glossary) contains definitions for many terms that may be useful to link to in bird articles. (Nevertheless, please be mindful ofWikipedia:Overlinking.) Links to definitions in the glossary may be added in other articles and pages using Template:Birdgloss –{{Birdgloss}} – in the form{{Birdgloss|term}}. This will work for exact terms or phrases defined in the glossary, or thoseanchored to a definition. If a term you wish to link is not already defined or anchored in the glossary, you canpipe a link to a definition, in the form:{{Birdgloss|actual term|display term}}. See thetemplate's documentation for more information.
| Songs and calls |
Bird vocalisations can be linked in articles using the template{{Birdsong}}. It provides an attractive link wrapper to recordings of songs and calls listed for that species atxeno-canto.org – which we use as very few Wikimedia Commons audio files exist. However, where they do, up to four of them can be added to the template, which allows them to be played directly in the article. An example use of the template appears at right, linking to the extraordinary call of theKookaburra. See the template's documentation for its syntax and how to modify its parameters, including how to change the default image to any one you specify.
{{subst:Barn Owl Barnstar|1=Put your message here. ~~~~}} to the talk page of the user to whom you wish to award it.{{subst:WPBIRDS Invite|~~~~}} to the talk page of the user that you wish to invite. You can also use{{subst:WPBIRDS Invite|article=article name|~~~~}}, replacingarticle name with the name of the article. General | |
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