There are 50 billion wild birds on Earth – but four species dominate

UngulateNerd92

UngulateNerd92

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Earth is home to around 50 billion wild birds according to a new global estimate, but most species are very rare and only a handful number in the billions.

Just four undomesticated species are in the club of those with a billion-plus individuals, with house sparrows (Passer domesticus) the most abundant, followed by European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris), ring-billed gulls (Larus delawarensis) and barn swallows (Hirundo rustica). By contrast, 1180 species number fewer than 5000 birds each.

There are 50 billion wild birds on Earth – but four species dominate | New Scientist
 
However, the next paragraph in the article is this:

"Another example is that the model initially predicted a best estimate of about 500 living ivory-billed woodpeckers, even though this species is thought to be extinct. That quirk was caused by two erroneous sightings of the species in the database when it was downloaded, which were later removed by reviewers. Nonetheless, Callaghan says such granular differences for individual species don’t change the overall estimate."

I haven't read the actual paper, but perhaps its results may be taken as less than reliable.
 
Chlidonias said:
"For instance, the red-billed quelea is sometimes regarded as the most numerous undomesticated bird on the planet, but in the new analysis its population is estimated at just 95 million."
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Chlidonias said:
However, the next paragraph in the article is this:

"Another example is that the model initially predicted a best estimate of about 500 living ivory-billed woodpeckers, even though this species is thought to be extinct. That quirk was caused by two erroneous sightings of the species in the database when it was downloaded, which were later removed by reviewers. Nonetheless, Callaghan says such granular differences for individual species don’t change the overall estimate."

I haven't read the actual paper, but perhaps its results may be taken as less than reliable.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I've read the article now and had the exact same thought.
 
Chlidonias said:
"Another example is that the model initially predicted a best estimate of about 500 living ivory-billed woodpeckers, even though this species is thought to be extinct. That quirk was caused by two erroneous sightings of the species in the database when it was downloaded, which were later removed by reviewers. Nonetheless, Callaghan says such granular differences for individual species don’t change the overall estimate."

I haven't read the actual paper, but perhaps its results may be taken as less than reliable.
Click to expand...

I have 515 ivory bill woodpeckers living in my yard alone. That model isn't reliable at all.
 
I found this comment about this study made by Birdforum user "jurek":

"The paper predicts an average of 500 Ivory-billed Woodpeckers, with 95% confidence intervals of of 6 and 41595 individuals. The authors themselves say it is due to two sightings which were later removed. However - this shows how vulnerable is this method to 2 errors. And note how huge the confidence interval is.

And the Kordofan Lark, a not threatened lark, considered relatively common with a huge range in the Sahel of Africa does not appear in the list at all, as if it was extinct. Because it occurs in places which American tourist birders don't visit, and there is not a single observation in eBird.

I guess everybody will spot the huge over-representation of birds which are easy to identify, highly visible, live in urban areas and in the USA and Great Britain. According to this study, of 25 worlds most abundant birds: 20 live in the USA, 1 on Pacific islands belonging to the USA, and the remaining 4 are garden birds in Great Britain.

I could write very, very long what are the flaws in general, and how one could salvage it, but - it is just too much of them and they are too big.

I will watch with interest whether the bad results will now start a life of their own, cited by people 'because these are so convenient' or 'they are the only ones on the subject'."

More than a billion sparrows
 
UngulateNerd92 said:
Earth is home to around 50 billion wild birds according to a new global estimate, but most species are very rare and only a handful number in the billions.

Just four undomesticated species are in the club of those with a billion-plus individuals, with house sparrows (Passer domesticus) the most abundant, followed by European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris), ring-billed gulls (Larus delawarensis) and barn swallows (Hirundo rustica). By contrast, 1180 species number fewer than 5000 birds each.

There are 50 billion wild birds on Earth – but four species dominate | New Scientist
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The barn swallow was realy suprising to see in the list. I never thought about them as being paricular commen. ( I didn't even knew that were also native to the maericans, which was suprising, since there are not many bird species commen to both)
 
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