Subject:      Re: Which Bird Most Prevalent ??
From:         dmark@acsu.buffalo.edu (David Mark) 
Date:         6 Dec 1997 02:03:34 GMT
Message-Id:   <66abpm$4n5$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>
Newsgroups:   rec.birds



In article <1997Dec5.130514.1@slacvx.slac.stanford.edu>, 
 <eisner@slacvx.slac.stanford.edu> wrote: 
>In article <34877196.2AB3@mindspring.com>, Dwight Beavers < beave@mindspring.com> writes: 
>> A statement was made in a Bird Documentary I recorded that the Red Not  
>> is the most prevalent bird on earth.I might have guessed one of the 
>> sparrows or perhaps the Quelia. 
> 
>This is most definitely false, and by a lot.  The name is Red Knot, by the 
>way.  I think that its numbers are of order 100,000 (give or take some factor), 
>but it is considered in danger.  Much of the world population stops at 
>Delaware Bay in migration, where it feeds on the rapidly decreasing (horse- 
>shoe?) crabs.  In contrast to those numbers, in the U.S. alone there are 
>several species which may well exceed 100 million (particularly European 
>Starling, Red-winged Blackbird, Common Grackle).  I think you may also be 
>correct about the Quelia.  Does anyone have Guinness handy? 
 
The Red-billed Quelea (Quelea quelea ) is listed in the "Pettigell Book of  
Birding Records" (First edition) as the "most numerous bird species" with an  
estimated population of 10,000,000,000 individuals.  Pettingell's source was  
the Guinness book, 1985.  Guinness 1989 which I happen to have, estimates 
6,500,000,000 domestic chickens, and notes that the most common sea bird 
is probably Wilson's Storm-Petrel, "hundreds of millions." 
 
David Mark 
dmark@acsu.buffalo.edu