The birds of South Asia include the species found in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and the Maldives.
This is not only a huge geographical area, but has a range of habitats extending from deserts to rainforest, and from the world's highest mountains to coastal mangrove swamps.
These factors, coupled with the tropical climate, result in a large numbers of bird species, some 1300. As would be expected in the tropics, most of these, more than 1,000 species, are resident within the South Asia. The rest are mainly winter visitors from further north in Eurasia. Only eighteen species are purely summer visitors to the subcontinent.
141 species are endemic to the region, and 26 of these are endemic to Sri Lanka.
Status abbreviations:
- R = widespread resident
- r = very local resident
- W = widespread winter visitor
- w = sparse winter visitor
- P = widespread migrant
- p = sparse migrant
- V = vagrant or irregular visitor
- I = introduced resident
- Ex = Extinct
- C = critically endangered
- E = endangered
- V = vulnerable
- D = conservation dependent
- N = near threatened
Because of the large number of species, the lists are divided into four parts.
- part 1 Megapodes, Galliformes, Gruiformes and near passerines
- part 2 Remainder of non-passerines
- part 3 Passerines from pittas to cisticolas
- part 4 Passerines from Old World warblers to buntings
Famous quotes containing the words list of, list, birds, south and/or asia:
“Religious literature has eminent examples, and if we run over our private list of poets, critics, philanthropists and philosophers, we shall find them infected with this dropsy and elephantiasis, which we ought to have tapped.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Shea—they call him Scholar Jack—
Went down the list of the dead.
Officers, seamen, gunners, marines,
The crews of the gig and yawl,
The bearded man and the lad in his teens,
Carpenters, coal-passers—all.”
—Joseph I. C. Clarke (1846–1925)
“... to a poet, the human community is like the community of birds to a bird, singing to each other. Love is one of the reasons we are singing to one another, love of language itself, love of sound, love of singing itself, and love of the other birds.”
—Sharon Olds (b. 1942)
“While the South is hardly Christ-centered, it is most certainly Christ-haunted.”
—Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964)
“So-called Western Civilization, as practised in half of Europe, some of Asia and a few parts of North America, is better than anything else available. Western civilization not only provides a bit of life, a pinch of liberty and the occasional pursuance of happiness, it’s also the only thing that’s ever tried to. Our civilization is the first in history to show even the slightest concern for average, undistinguished, none-too-commendable people like us.”
—P.J. (Patrick Jake)