17 birds containing the letter M — each with origin, classification, and notes.
Below are birds that contain the letter M anywhere in the name. Each of the 17 birds below opens to a full profile.
A handsome winter finch from Scandinavian forests that arrives in Britain each autumn — the male has a striking orange-and-black plumage in breeding dress, and in exceptional years when beech mast crops are abundant, millions can gather at single sites across Central Europe in breathtaking communal roosts.
A diving water bird with non-waterproof feathers — visible drying with spread wings on rocks and pilings, used for centuries by Asian fishermen as living fishing tools, and now ecologically critical fish-eaters across coastal and inland waters worldwide.
Australia's largest native bird and second-largest in the world after the ostrich — a flightless 1.8 m tall ratite that runs up to 50 km/h, drinks daily, and once "lost" a war against Australian troops.
A long-legged wading bird whose pink color comes from carotenoid pigments in its food, famous for filter-feeding upside-down and standing on one leg.
A sea-going auk that nests by the million on vertical sea cliffs, packing shoulder-to-shoulder in dense colonies — it flies underwater using its wings to pursue fish to depths of 180 metres, and its pear-shaped egg rolls in a circle rather than off the cliff edge if knocked.
A familiar summer visitor that builds its distinctive mud nest under the eaves of houses — arriving from southern Africa each April, house martins construct domed cup nests from hundreds of individual pellets of mud gathered from puddle edges; the white rump is the key identification feature separating it from the swallow.
The most common hummingbird in eastern North America, weighing less than a U.S. nickel, capable of hovering, flying backward, and migrating across the Gulf of Mexico nonstop.
A large, brilliantly colored Central and South American parrot with a powerful nutcracking bill and lifelong pair bonds, threatened across most of its range by habitat loss and poaching.
A long-tailed black-and-white corvid with iridescent blue-green wing flashes — Eurasian magpies are among the most-studied intelligent birds, while Australian magpies are renowned for spring swooping attacks on humans.
Britain's largest harrier — a spectacular bird of prey of reedbeds and marshes, the male has a striking grey wing patch contrasting with russet body and black wingtips; it quartered over British reedbeds for centuries but was driven to extinction by hunting and egg collection, with only one pair breeding by 1971; a successful conservation recovery has produced over 600 pairs today.
A small, glossy-capped tit of ancient woodland — easily confused with the willow tit but distinguished by its glossier black cap, cleaner white cheeks, and distinctive 'pitchoo' call; like all tits, the marsh tit is an intelligent, acrobatic forager; it is a food-hoarder, storing thousands of individual seeds in bark crevices and leaf litter, and has an exceptional spatial memory for relocating them.
Britain's smallest falcon — a fierce, compact little raptor of upland moorland and coasts that hunts small birds with explosive speed, often following close to the ground in low dashing pursuit; the female is streaky brown, the male is blue-grey above with an orange-buff breast, and both are easily overlooked until they erupt in a burst of rapid wingbeats.
A medium-sized gray songbird famous for mimicking dozens of other species — capable of imitating 200+ songs and sounds across a lifetime, with the northern mockingbird as Harper Lee's literary symbol of innocence.
The high Arctic grouse that turns completely white in winter — Britain's only truly alpine bird, confined to the Scottish Highlands above 800 metres; it moults three times a year to match its surroundings (brown in summer, mottled grey in autumn, pure white in winter) and is so well camouflaged that walkers almost step on them before the bird moves.
A large black tropical bird of South American rainforests, distinguished by an umbrella-like crest of feathers above its head and a long, retractable, throat-feathered wattle that males inflate during courtship displays.
A small, range-restricted hummingbird of southern Baja California with a brilliant green back and rufous belly — endemic to the peninsula and one of the few "X" birds in field guides.
A bright yellow European bunting whose distinctive song is often transcribed as "a little bit of bread and no cheeeese" — a familiar farmland bird in the British Isles, declining with the loss of mixed agriculture.
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