More About Subject Categories:

The images are classified using the following subject categories:

• Birds [with 15 sub-categories, described below]
• Mammals
• Other Wildlife
• Scenic
• Fish
• Insects
• People
• Plants

Our Fifteen Bird Categories

We have divided the Refuge Image Library's bird images into the 15 categories used by Kenn Kaufman in his Focus guide, The Birds of North America (Houghton Mifflin 2000). The sequence departs in several places from the official scientific order of the American Ornithologists' Union (AOU), but is so arranged so that similar-looking birds are actually grouped together:

1. Ducks, Geese, and Swans
   These are the classic waterfowl, recognizable by most people.
2. Other Swimming Birds
   These "other" swimming birds include loons, grebes, alcids, and coots.
3. Aerial Waterbirds
   This general category includes pelicans, gulls, terns, jaegers, shearwaters, petrels, and boobies.
4. Birds of Prey
   These are the usual hawks, falcons, kites, and eagles, as well as the vultures and owls.
5. Chicken-like Birds
   These are the upland gamebirds, the Wild Turkey, quail, pheasant, grouse, etc.
6. Wading Birds
   These are the long-legged waders: herons, egrets, bitterns, and ibises, as well as cranes and rails.
7. Shorebirds
   These birds include plovers, sandpipers, avocet, oystercatcher, snipe, and phalaropes.
8. Medium-sized Landbirds
   This is a catch-all category of pigeons and doves, cuckoos, woodpeckers, kingfishers and goatsuckers.
9. Hummingbirds, Swifts, Swallows
   The hummingbirds, swallows, martins, and swallows are included in this grouping.
10. Flycatchers
    Kingbirds, empids, phoebes, and other flycatchers are in this category.
11. Typical Songbirds
    The "typical" songbirds cover thrushes, mimic-thrushes, kinglets, vireos, wrens, chickadees, crows, jays, and waxwings, among others.
12. Warblers
    The "wood warblers" are here, often called the "butterflies of the bird world."
13. Tanagers, Blackbirds, and Others
    The unusual starling and anis are included in the group along with the tanagers, usual blackbirds, and orioles.
14. Sparrows
    These "little brown birds" include the Old World sparrows and the ones of the New World as well as the juncos and longspurs.
15. Finches, Buntings, and Grosbeaks
    This grouping includes the 'winter finches," siskin, towhees, goldfinches, and grosbeaks.