For most bird lovers, the sight of birds flying in a clear skyline is simply a treat for the eyes. Watching birds twist, glide, turn, soar, dive, etc. in the sky is simply fascinating and causes us to want to fly like them in the sky.
There are over 10,000 bird species on this planet, and this number is still rising with the discovery of newer species. These species are generally categorized in to 25 to 30 kinds. More than 80% of these come amongst a few well-known types. Here is a compilation of these 12 common bird categories which include the ones that are commonly observed, as well as the more rarely encountered species. Although, you may find many other ways to categorize birds, but here we have typecast them according to their appearance and behavior.
List of Kinds of Birds
| Birds | Example |
| Long-legged Waders | Herons, egrets, storks, spoonbills, flamingos, bitterns, limpkins, ibises, cranes |
| Duck | Surface-feeding ducks, diving ducks, stiff-tailed ducks, mergansers, coots, whistling-ducks, geese, swans, pelicans, grebes, loons |
| Perching | Sparrows, kingfishers, cuckoos, bulbuls, crows, flycatchers, parrots, mockingbirds, blackbirds, ravens, starlings, jays, magpies, shrikes, buntings |
| Fowl | Chicken, turkey, rails, gallinules, jacanas |
| Hawk | Kites, eagles, ospreys, harriers, caracaras, falcons, vultures |
| Owls | True owls, barn owls |
| Upland Ground | Woodcocks, quails, peacocks, partridges, pheasants, grouse, turkeys, roadrunners, chachalacas, nightjars |
| Tree-clinging | Woodpeckers, nuthatches, creepers |
| Upright-perching Water Birds | Auks, murres, puffins, cormorants, anhingas |
| Gull | Fulmars, shearwaters, albatrosses, terns, skimmers, gannets, boobies, storm-petrels, frigatebirds, skuas, jaegers, tropicbirds |
| Pigeon | Partridge, dove |
Apart from the list given here, there are many more kinds of birds, but as said before, these 12 types categorize most of the birds on this planet, while the ones in the remaining categories are very rare and very insignificant in numbers.
