Birds of Asia and Africa

Birds of Asia

Asia, the largest of the world's continents, has a wide variety of climates. These include tropical rain forests, temperate forests, deserts, marshlands, and Arctic tundra. Such birds as broadbills, fairy-bluebirds, fruit-doves, hornbills, and leafbirds inhabit Asian forests. The male rhinoceros hornbill, like other tree-nesting hornbills, walls up his mate into a nest hole while she incubates the eggs. The golden-fronted leafbird lives in monsoon forests, which have a long dry season followed by a season of heavy rainfall. The trees in a monsoon forest usually shed their leaves during the dry season and leaf out again at the start of the rainy season. The golden-fronted leafbird feeds on fruit and insects. The blue-backed fairy-bluebird and the lesser green broadbill eat mainly fruit. Many tropical southeast Asian birds, such as the blue-winged pitta and purple-throated sunbird, have multicolored plumage.





The Himalaya, the great mountain range in southern Asia, is a biologically rich area with many species of birds. The foothills of the Himalaya provide a home to several brightly colored members of the pheasant family, including the Himalayan monal and Lady Amherst's pheasant. The Himalayan monal lives in forests above 10,000 feet (3,000 meters) high. The male has a loud ringing call. The common myna inhabits dry hillsides in India.

Some cultivated areas of Asia have become habitats for such species as the coppersmith barbet and the Java sparrow. The coppersmith barbet lives in open woodland, including orchards and gardens. It has a distinctive, monotonous "tonk" call, which it repeats over long periods. The Java sparrow was originally native to the islands of Bali and Java but has been widely introduced to other regions. It commonly resides in open areas, including rice fields, and has become a popular pet.


Birds of Africa

The Sahara, a vast desert, stretches across northern Africa and separates the continent's northern Mediterranean coastline from the land to the south. As a result, Mediterranean Africa shares many bird species with southern Europe. South of the Sahara, much of Africa has a tropical climate and a richer bird life. Rain forests provide homes for such colorful birds as the emerald cuckoo, yellow-bellied wattle-eye, and hammerkop. Many kinds of weavers live in open woodlands. The tropical grasslands have two of the world's tallest birds, the ostrich and the secretary-bird, as well as guineafowl and the crowned crane. Water birds of tropical Africa include the shoebill, the African fish-eagle, and various ducks, jacanas, kingfishers, and pelicans. Madagascar, a large island off the southeast African coast, has many unique birds, including the cuckoo roller and the helmet vanga.

The Distribution of Birds

Every species of bird has its own range-that is, a particular part of the world in which all the members of the species normally live. Some birds have a broad range. The osprey and common barn owl, for example, live on every continent except Antarctica. However, no species of bird is found in every part of the world, and many species have an extremely limited range. For example, a species called the Whitehead's broadbill lives only in a small, mountainous area of northern Borneo.

Oceans and continents strongly influence the distribution of various species of birds. Most birds cannot make long ocean flights. Widely separated continents, such as Africa and North America, therefore have different kinds of birds. However, people have transported many species overseas, and some of these birds have become adapted to their new environment.

Climate also influences a bird's range. Most birds would starve during a long cold spell. For this reason, few birds live all year in regions with severe winters. However, many birds nest in such regions in summer and migrate to warmer climates for the winter. Birds that migrate have two ranges-a summer one and a winter one. They are summer residents in their summer range and winter residents in their winter one. Along their migration route, they are transients (temporary visitors). Birds that do not migrate are permanent residents.

More kinds of birds live in the tropics than anywhere else in the world. Tropical rain forests have more kinds of birds than any other habitat. Most birds of the tropics are permanent residents. However, some parts of the tropics have an annual dry season, and many of the birds migrate to moister parts of the tropics to avoid it. The tropics also have many winter residents that migrate from cool or cold climates. The temperate zones-that is, the parts of the world between the tropics and the polar regions-have fewer permanent residents than do the tropics. In the parts of the temperate zones nearest the polar regions, most of the birds are summer residents only. Few birds live all year in the polar regions. However, both the Arctic and the Antarctic have many residents during the summer.

The ranges of birds are further determined by the kinds of food and nesting places that are available. For example, fish-eating birds must live near bodies of water. Birds that nest in trees normally live only in wooded areas. Thus, most birds live not only in a particular region of the world but also in a particular type of environment, or habitat, within that region.