1
Adelie Penguin
Pygoscelis adeliae
A medium-sized Antarctic penguin recognized by white eye-rings on a black face — one of the most-southerly breeding birds on Earth, completing 13,000 km annual migrations on sea ice.
Below are birds that contain the letter P anywhere in the name. Each of the 22 birds below opens to a full profile.
List of Birds That Contain P
2
Dipper
Cinclus cinclus
The only aquatic songbird — a compact brown-and-white bird that walks along the riverbed submerged, using its wings to swim against the current and find invertebrates in fast-flowing streams.
3
Hoopoe
Upupa epops
A cinnamon-orange bird with a dramatic black-tipped crown that fans open into a bold crest — found across Africa, Europe, and Asia, the national bird of Israel, and known in many cultures as a messenger between the worlds.
4
Lapwing
Vanellus vanellus
A pied farmland wader with a wispy black crest and spectacular aerial courtship display — once Europe's most abundant wader, now in rapid decline due to agricultural change, and the subject of major conservation concern.
5
Magpie
Pica pica (Eurasian); Cracticus tibicen (Australian — different family)
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.
6
Parrot
Psittacus erithacus
A medium-sized grey parrot widely regarded as the most cognitively gifted bird species, capable of imitating human speech and demonstrating reasoning beyond simple mimicry.
7
Partridge
Perdix perdix
A plump, ground-dwelling game bird of European farmland and hedgerows — the "pear tree" bird of the twelve days of Christmas, now in serious decline across much of its range due to agricultural intensification.
8
Peacock
Pavo cristatus
A large pheasant native to South Asia whose male sports a vivid iridescent train and elaborate fan display, the textbook example of sexual selection in evolution.
9
Pelican
Pelecanus occidentalis (brown); Pelecanus erythrorhynchos (American white)
A large coastal water bird with a distinctive throat pouch — used as a fishing net during plunge-dives and as a holding bag while feeding chicks, common at coastal fishing piers worldwide.
10
Penguin
Aptenodytes forsteri
The largest living penguin species and the only animal to breed during the Antarctic winter, enduring the planet's harshest conditions.
11
Pheasant
Phasianus colchicus (common pheasant)
A large game bird native to Asia — introduced to North America and Europe for hunting, with the iridescent ring-necked males and mottled-camouflage females being among the most familiar farmland birds in their introduced range.
12
Pied Flycatcher
Ficedula hypoleuca
The black-and-white summer visitor of ancient oak woods — the male pied flycatcher is crisply black above and white below with a bold white forehead patch; the female is brown and white; they arrive from West Africa in late April to breed in old oak trees and nest boxes, making sallying flights to catch insects and raising a brood before departing in late summer.
13
Pigeon
Columba livia
A globally ubiquitous urban bird descended from the rock dove of Mediterranean cliffs — domesticated for over 5,000 years for food, communication, racing, and ornamentation, with feral populations in nearly every city worldwide.
14
Plover
Charadrius and Pluvialis spp.
A family of compact, fast-running shorebirds found on beaches, mudflats, and grasslands worldwide — famous for the killdeer's broken-wing distraction display that lures predators away from the nest.
15
Ptarmigan
Lagopus muta
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.
16
Puffin
Fratercula arctica (Atlantic puffin)
A small black-and-white seabird with a colorful triangular bill — capable of holding 10+ fish in its beak at once, nesting in cliff burrows by the millions, and increasingly threatened by warming oceans.
17
Sandpiper
Scolopacidae (family)
A diverse family of small to medium shorebirds with long bills probing for invertebrates in mud and sand — many species undertake some of the longest non-stop bird migrations on Earth, sometimes 11,000+ km in a single flight.
18
Snipe
Gallinago gallinago
A cryptically patterned wader of wet grassland and bogs — famous for its evasive zigzagging escape flight, its ethereal "drumming" display sound made by tail feathers, and for being the origin of the word "sniper."
19
Sparrow
Passer domesticus (house sparrow); various Passerellidae species
A small, brown, ubiquitous songbird — the house sparrow following human settlements globally, the native New World sparrows often confused with it, all unfussy about food and habitat.
20
Spoonbill
Platalea leucorodia
A tall, all-white wading bird with a spatula-shaped bill that sweeps side to side through shallow water — one of Europe's most spectacular wetland birds, and a conservation success story after near-extinction in northwestern Europe.
21
Treecreeper
Certhia familiaris
A tiny, mouse-like bird that spirals methodically up tree trunks probing crevices for insects with its long, curved bill — always ascending, never descending, flying to the base of a new tree to start over; its brown and white bark-pattern plumage makes it nearly invisible on oak and ash bark.
22
Woodpecker
Dryocopus pileatus
A large, crow-sized woodpecker with a vivid red crest, the model for Woody Woodpecker; chisels rectangular holes deep into wood with a series of head-snapping impacts.
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