Birds
Birds as a group need no introduction; they are the most heavily studied animals in the world, and birding is one of the more popular sporting pastimes. Birds provide such enjoyment that much of the ecotourism around the world is based on birding, especially so in some tropical countries.
Birds comprise the Class Aves, with around 11,000 species on the planet, being much more numerous in tropical zones than in the more temperate regions such as Europe and North America. Nonetheless, well over 950 species have been recorded in the United States and Canada. Of these, North Carolina has recorded nearly 500 species, of which around 200 breed in the state, at least sporadically.
The Birds of North Carolina website that is found on the NC Biodiversity Project site is actually a function of the Carolina Bird Club, and a link to the website is also found on that organization’s home page. The website has been in operation for over 30 years and is arranged, as with most other taxonomic groups on the NCBP website, in taxonomic sequence, from more primitive to more advanced families and genera. However, like all of these websites, users normally visit a species by entering in the common name.
Each of the nearly 500 species accounts contain a verbal status by the three major provinces; for rarer species the full record is provided. For breeding species, a generalized map of county abundance is provided, so that the user can quickly visualize where the species is more numerous as a breeder. Species county maps are also provided, but these are not up-to-date, and such maps for migratory species are not overly meaningful. A full checklist of the species can be downloaded from the website.