Passerida Photo Albums I
The first of two album pages that provide links to galleries that display images of Passerida that belong to order Passeriformes, see Passerida Taxonomy note below. I photographed in various natural habitats. In each photo album, a gallery features portraits of individual species that may include male, female, juvenile or immature birds. For some species, supplementary galleries display behaviours such as hunting, nesting, feeding, and mating.
Basal Passerida
Australasian Robins are small, stocky birds that come in many colours and inhabit forest and woodland habitat.
Sylvioidea
Cisticolas, grassbirds, reed-warblers and larks families feature in the album. These are small birds found in a variety of habitats including woods and wetlands.
Featured families include swallows, martins, and leaf-warblers. These are small to medium-sized birds found a wide range of habitat.
The babbler, white-eye and laughingthrush families are small to medium-sized birds. Habitat includes woods, scrub and sometimes cultivated areas.
Core Passeroidea
Very small to small mainly arboreal Passeri that forage amongst the branches and foliage of trees or bushes, or perch to hunt flying or ground prey.
These three families are small to medium-sized birds. Thrushes and starlings have a wide range of habitat while mockingbirds prefer open scrubby areas in arid areas.
Passerida Taxonomy
To help the presentation of my Passeriformes photo album collections, I adopt the Passerida taxonomy in J Boyd’s Taxonomy in Flux Checklist. This taxonomy approach involves moving some families to the basal/core groups and others to new and extant superfamilies. For clarity, I’ve only included a summary of the taxonomy that is relevant to the photo albums.
Passerida Photo Albums I
(1) Basal and Core (tits) Passerida families include Australasian Robins placed in Callaeoidea;
(2) Sylvioidea includes families moved from Passeroidea together with many existing families in the Sibley and Monroe checklist:
(a) Acrocephalus Group: Larks song-larks (Alaudidae), Reed-warblers (Acrocephalidae), Grassbirds (Locustellidae) and Cisticolas (Cisticolidae);
(b) Swallows, Bulbuls, and others: Swallows and Martins (Hirundinidae), Bulbuls (Pycnonotidae), Long-tailed Tits (Aegithalidae), and Leaf-warblers (Phylloscopidae);
(c) Babblers and Allies: White-eyes (Zosteropidae), Babblers (Timaliidae), Ground Babblers (Pellorneidae), and Laughingthrushes (Leiothrichidae).
(3) Muscicapoidea contains two clades:
(a) Mockingbirds, and starlings;
(b) Thrushes, and Old World flycatchers.
Passerida Photo Albums II
(1) Basal Passeroidea families comprise sunbirds and spider-hunters (Nectariniidae) and flower-peckers (Dicaeidae);
(2) Core Passeroidea contains the following two clades, which I’ve grouped into four photo albums:
(a) Estrildid Clade: Accentors (Prunellidae), Weavers (Ploceidae) and the Estrildid Finches (Estrildidae);
(b) Passerid Clade: Old World Sparrows (Passeridae) and the Nine-primaried Oscines Basal Group: Wagtails (Motacillidae) and Old World Finches (Fringillidae);
(c) Passerid Clade: Nine-primaried Oscines Buntings and Sparrows Group and Blackbird and Warbler Group, part of epifamily Icteroidae;
(d) Passerid Clade: Nine-primaried Oscines; Thraupid Group Tanagers (Thraupidae) and Cardinals (Cardinalidae), part of epifamily Icteroidae. Epifamily is a rarely used taxonomic rank between family and superfamily.
Note that Sibley and Ahlquist Taxonomy divides Passerida into three superfamilies: Sylvioidea, Muscicapoidea and Passeroidea.