List of individual birds

This is a list of famous birds, real and fictional.

Real

Individuals

• The African grey parrot Alex, who, in studies by Dr. Irene Pepperberg, has demonstrated an ability to count; differentiate categories involving objects, colors, shapes, and materials; and understand the concept of same and different.
• Bubi, a Eurasian eagle-owl that lives near the Helsinki Olympic Stadium. His appearance at soccer games is considered a good omen for the Finland national football team, which has taken the nickname of "Huuhkajat," the Finnish word for the species. Bubi was named Helsinki's "Resident of the Year" in 2007.
• Challenger - the first Bald Eagle in history trained to free fly into major sporting events during the National Anthem.
• Cher Ami, British-bred homing pigeon who in the Autumn of 1918 delivered twelve messages for the U.S. Army during World War I, among other things helping to save the Lost Battalion.
• Commando, DM, was a pigeon that carried out more than ninety missions carrying crucial intelligence during World War II for the British armed forces.
• Gertie, a mallard duck who nested on some pilings under a bridge in Milwaukee in 1945. She (and her brood) are immortalized in RiverSculpture!
• G.I. Joe, DM, was a member of the United States Army Pigeon Service. On 18 October 1943, the village of Calvi Vecchia, Italy was scheduled to be bombed by the Allies. He carried the message that British forces had captured the village, thus averting the attack and saving the lives of over a thousand people, both the local Italians and the British occupying troops.
• Incas, the last Carolina parakeet, who died in 1918 at the Cincinnati Zoo, reportedly of grief after his mate Lady Jane died a few months before him, in 1917
• Martha, the last of the American passenger pigeons, who died at the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914. Species Requiem Day, September 1, marks Martha's passing.
• Mike, the Wyandotte rooster of Fruita, Colorado who lived for 18 months after his head was cut off. The botched decapitation in 1945 missed his brain stem and jugular vein. His owners fed him thereafter with an eyedropper, and took him on tours of the West Coast. He died in 1947.
• Pale Male a Red-tailed hawk living near Central Park in New York City.
• Sirocco, a hand-reared Kakapo, an ambassador for his species and conservation in New Zealand.

Groups

• The Capitoline geese, who warned of an imminent attack on Rome by the Gauls in 390 B.C.
• The Cliff Swallows that return from Villa Ventana, Argentina every year to the Mission San Juan Capistrano in California on (or around) March 19.
• The ducks of the Peabody Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee, who, in a tradition dating back to the 1930s, are escorted from their penthouse palace down the elevator every day of the year at 11:00 a.m., cross a red carpet to a Sousa march, and spend the day in the lobby fountain, returning home with equal ceremony at 5:00 p.m.
• The gulls who saved the Mormon pioneers from a cricket infestation.
• The Hollywood Freeway chickens are a feral colony living under the Vineland Avenue off-ramp of the Hollywood Freeway in Los Angeles.
• The ravens of the Tower of London, whose continuing presence there is said to maintain the general safety of the kingdom.

Owned by famous people

• Mrs. Ballard's parrots, whose owner, Alba Ballard, dressed them up in costumes and had them photographed in miniature scenes she made. Sherlock Holmes, General Patton, and Sonny and Cher were just a few of the people portrayed. They appeared on several American late-night television shows in the 1970s and 1980s.
• The parrot who sailed with Thor Heyerdahl on the raft Kon-Tiki.
• Ulysses, Gerald Durrell's pet owl when he was growing up in Corfu. Ulysses appeared frequently in Durrell's books about living on the Greek island.

Famous extinct species

• Archaeopteryx
• Carolina parakeet
• Dodo
• Great Auk
• Moa
• Passenger pigeon
• South American Terror Birds

Fictional

Mythological/Legendary

  Biblical

• A raven and a dove sent by Noah to determine whether the land had dried sufficiently after the flood (Genesis 8).
• Ravens brought food to Elijah (1 Kings 17:4-6).

  Other

• Huginn and Muninn, the Norse god Odin's pair of ravens. Huginn ("thought") and Muninn ("memory") travel the world, and bring the information they have gathered back to Odin.
• Athena's owl.

  Constellations

• Apus, a bird-of-paradise
• Aquila, an eagle
• Columba, a dove
• Corvus, a crow
• Cygnus, a swan
• Grus, a crane
• Pavo, a peacock
• Phoenix, a phoenix
• Tucana, a toucan

Fictional Individuals

• Captain Flint, a parrot owned by Long John Silver in Treasure Island.
• Fawkes, a phoenix, the pet and magical familiar of Professor Dumbledore in the Harry Potter series.
• Grip, the raven in Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens.
• Hedwig is Harry Potter's Snowy owl.
• Nevermore, the eponymous bird in Edgar Allan Poe's poem, "The Raven".
• Sibyl, the parrot familiar of Mrs De Passe in Bell, Book, and Candle.
• Soren, the owl from the book series Guardians of Ga'Hoole, and movie Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole.

Fictional Species

• Firebird, a bird with glowing feathers. (Russia)
• Phoenix, a bird that self-combusts and is reborn from the ashes. (Egypt)
• Roc, a gigantic bird that feeds elephants to its young. (India)
• Simurgh, an intelligent and benevolent bird of monstrous size. (Persia)
• Thunderbird, an intelligent, but dangerous giant bird that creates storms. (North America)

See also

• Extinct birds