Environment Reference Libraries

The Kermadec Petrel (Pterdroma neglecta) is a species of seabird belonging to the family Procellariidae. It’s found in Australia, Japan, Chile, Micronesia, Mexico, Norfolk Island, New Zealand, Pitcairn, and the United States. The Kermadec Petrel is rarely documented west of Lord Howe Island, where it maintains a small colony of less than 100 individuals on an offshore rock called Balls...

The Lesser Frigatebird (Fregata ariel) is a species of frigate bird. In nests in Australia, along with other locations. There is a single recording from the Western Palearctic, from Eilat in the Gulf of Aqaba. The Lesser Frigatebird or Least Frigatebird is said to be the most common and widespread frigate bird in the Australian seas. It’s common in tropical seas breeding on isolated...

The Little Curlew (Numenius minutus) is a wader belonging to the large bird family Scolopacidae. It’s a very small curlew, which breeds in the far northern parts of Siberia. It’s closely related to the North American Eskimo Curlew. This is a strongly migratory species, spending its winters in Australasia. It is a rare vagrant to the western part of Europe. This bird breeds in loosely...

The Lesser Yellow-headed Vulture (Cathartes burrovianus), also known as the Savannah Vulture, is a species of bird belonging to the New World Vulture family Cathartidae. It was considered to be the same species as the Greater Yellow-headed Vulture until they were separated in 1964. It can be found in Mexico, Central America, and South America in seasonally wet or flooded lowland grassland,...

The Magnificent Frigatebird (Fregata magnificens) was occasionally previously known as Man O’War or man of War, a reflection of its rakish lines, aerial piracy of other birds, and speed. It’s widespread in the tropical Atlantic, breeding colonially in the trees in Florida, the Caribbean and the Cape Verde Islands. In addition, it breeds along the Pacific coast of the Americas from Mexico...

The Western Marsh-harrier (Circus aeruginosus) is a sizable harrier, a bird of prey from subtropical and temperate western Eurasia and adjacent Africa. It’s also known as the Eurasian Marsh-harrier. Formerly, a number of relatives were included in C. aeruginosus, which was known then as “Marsh Harrier”. The related taxa are now usually considered to be separate species: the Eastern...

The Madagascar Pochard (Aythya innotata) is an exceptionally rare diving duck belonging to the genus Aythya. Thought to be extinct in the late 1990s, specimens of this species were rediscovered at Lake Matsaborimena in Madagascar in 2006. Only 60 individuals remain after 18 ducklings hatched in a captive breeding center in April 2012. Based on the accounts written by Webb and Delacour’s in...

The Masked Duck (Nomonyx dominicus) is a small stiff-tailed duck ranging through the tropical Americas. They’re found from Mexico to South America and also in the Caribbean. They are primarily non-migratory. Masked Ducks are reported as very uncommon vagrants in the southernmost part of the United States, along the Mexican border and in Florida. Being the only member of the genus Nomonyx,...

The Chukar Partridge or Chukar (Alectoris chukar) is a Eurasian upland game bird in the pheasant family called Phasianidae. It’s been considered to form a super species complex along with the Rock Partridge, Philby’s Partridge and Przevalski’s Partridge and treated in the past as conspecific especially with the first. This partridge has well marked white and black bars on the flanks and a...

The White-headed Duck (Oxyura leucocephala) is a petite stiff-tailed duck. The adult males have a reddish and grey body, a blue bill, and a largely white head with black cap and neck. The adult females have a brown-grey body with a white face and a darker bill, cheek stripe and cap. On average, its length is 17 to 19 inches and the weight is 1.3 to 1.7 lbs. This duck breeds in Spain and...