Bird names in eBird are based on the eBird/Clements taxonomy, which is maintained in English. eBird supports 99 languages and customized versions of bird names so you can always use the bird names you prefer. The default Common Names in eBird appear under eBird Preferences as "English (United States)”. If you prefer to use English (US) but spell "grey" instead of "gray", English (Malaysian) allows that.
You can access your eBird Preferences by clicking your name in the upper right corner of every page on eBird.org. If you are using eBird Mobile, you can easily set your common name preferences there as well, either when you install the app or from 'Settings' at any time.
Be aware that Common Names can change from time to time, especially when splits occur, so please be careful to make sure you understand the population to which a given name refers. To find the right name, check the Scientific Name and review the eBird taxonomy article, where you can also download the entire taxonomy. Be careful, scientific names are not unique to a given species or population and they change almost as much as, maybe more than, Common Names!
Below is a listing of the Common Name translations that we maintain. The short code in parentheses is the ISO code and is used in our official eBird taxonomy files. The last update to this list and these names occurred on 3 Jul 2024. There are currently 57 languages supported, as well as 42 regional versions of English, Chinese, Spanish, French, and Portuguese, for a total of 99 regional sets of bird names.
Afrikaans (af) -- Limited to species known from southern Africa. Thanks to Johnny Wilson for providing and maintaining these names.
Albanian (sq)-- Limited to species known from Albania. Thanks to our friends at the Albanian Ornithological Society (AOS), especially Erald Xeka and Taulant Bino, for help translating and maintaining these names.
Arabic (ar) -- Limited to species known from the Middle East. These names are provided and maintained by the Association for Bird Conservation in Lebanon, with special thanks to Fouad Itani, James Hogg, Julie Lebnan, and Pierre Dawalibi; Abdulrahman Al-Sirhan Alenezi has helped to maintain the names since 2021.
Armenian (hy) -- Limited to species known from Armenia. Thanks to Karen Aghababyan for providing and maintaining these names.
Assamese (as) -- Includes 101 most common species in the region. Thanks to Jaydev Mandal and Rupam Bhaduri for these translations, as well as the Bird Count India team for coordinating language translations within India.
Asturian (ast) -- Limited to species known from Spain. Thanks to our eBird España team, and especially to Rubén Fernandez and Javier Morala for providing and maintaining these names.
Azerbaijani (az) -- Limited to species known from Azerbaijan. Thanks to Zülfü Ferecli for providing and maintaining these names.
Basque (eu) -- Limited to species known from Spain. Thanks to our eBird España team, and especially to Asier Sarasua, Héctor González Arcelus and Javier Morala for providing and maintaining these names.
Bengali (bn) -- Includes 60 most common species in the region. Thanks to Bird Count India, especially Kanad Baidya as well as Sayam U Chowdhury, for providing and maintaining these names.
Bulgarian (bg) -- Limited to the species known from Bulgaria. Thanks to Simeon Gigov for providing these names.
Catalan (ca) -- Limited to species known from Spain. Thanks to our eBird España team, and especially to Javier Morala and Marc Gálvez, for providing and maintaining these names.
Chinese, Mandarin (traditional) (zh) -- Limited to species known from Taiwan. Thanks to our eBird Taiwan team, and especially to Scott Lin, for providing these names and updates to them.
Chinese, Mandarin (traditional) , Hong Kong (zh_HK) -- This name set provides species names that match prevailing usage in Hong Kong. Thanks to Anson Tse and the Hong Kong eBird team for providing and maintaining these names.
Chinese, Simple (zh_SIM) -- Limited to species known from China. Thanks to Tong Mu, Larry Chen, and Yuetao Zhong for providing and maintaining these names. The IOC English names are used for species that do not occur in China.
Creole, Haiti (ht_HT) -- Limited to species known from Haiti. Thanks to Jim Goetz and Ms. Benjamin Francoise for providing and maintaining these names.
Croatian (hr) -- Limited to the species known from Croatia. Thanks to Josip Turkalj for these translations.
Czech (cs) -- Includes all species known from the Western Palearctic. Thanks to Jakub Macháň for providing and maintaining these names; thanks also to Vlk Mrňous for helping with these names in previous years.
Danish (da) -- Including all species known from the Western Palearctic. Thanks to Nikolaj Thomsen and Anton Liebermann for providing and maintaining these names.
Dutch (nl) -- This is a nearly GLOBAL list of names. Thanks to Ruurd Jorritsma for providing and maintaining this list of names and to Boris Everwijn for earlier versions.
English (en) -- English and English (United States) both give the same set of names, which are the primary English names exactly as they appear in the eBird/Clements Checklist.
English, Australia (en_AU) -- This name set customizes our baseline English names to provide species names that match prevailing usage in Australia, largely in accord with Christidis and Boles's 2008 Systematics and Taxonomy of Australian Birds. Thanks to our eBird Australia team, and especially to Mat Gilfedder, for providing and maintaining these names.
English, Bangladesh (en_BD) -- This name set customizes our baseline English names to provide species names that match prevailing usage in Bangladesh. Thanks to Sayam Chowdury for providing and maintaining these names.
English, Hawaii (en_HAW) -- This name set customizes our baseline English names to provide species names in Hawaiian for certain species known from Hawaii. Thanks to Bret Mossman, Noah Gomes, and Lance Tanino for providing and maintaining these names.
English, HBW (en_HBW) -- Birdlife International, in collaboration with the Handbook of Birds of the World at Lynx Ediciones, maintains the HBW and BirdLife Taxonomic Checklist. eBird Central, in collaboration with Denis Lepage, maintains this common name set to provide a "cross-walk" between the eBird/Clements taxonomy and the Birdlife/HBW taxonomy. Along with "English, IOC" this is a case where an alternate taxonomic nomenclature is used; see "English, IOC" to understand how this is handled in eBird (i.e., scientific names and species tallies do not change). This is current for eBird/Clements v2019 and Birdlife/HBW version 4.
English, India (en_IN) -- This name set customizes our baseline names for the species of India to match prevailing usage in the region. Thanks to Bird Count India, especially Praveen J, Ashwin Viswanathan, Ramit Singal, Raman Kumar, and Suhel Quader, for providing and maintaining these names.
English, Hong Kong (en_HK) -- This name set customizes our baseline English names to provide species names that match prevailing usage in Hong Kong. It is based off the United Kingdom English (below) with modifications important for Hong Kong. Thanks to Anson Tse and the Hong Kong eBird team for providing and maintaining these names.
English, IOC (en_IOC) -- The International Ornithologists' Committee (IOC) maintains a list of bird names and unique taxonomy, similar to the eBird baseline Clements checklist. This name set is current for IOC v14.1 and eBird v2023. We provide a full set of translated names to match IOC, but note that this is one of two cases ("English, HBW" being the other) where an alternative taxonomy is supported. While scientific names do not change, the English bird names are adjusted to match the equivalent taxon in eBird: an IOC split is typically represented as a subspecies group while a lump is typically represented as a slash (rarely a spuh). Life lists in eBird will display the names for the equivalent taxon but the totals will not be adjusted and will reflect eBird taxonomy. For example, one can see that IOC splits Green-winged Teal (Anas carolinensis) from Eurasian Teal (Anas crecca), while eBird lumps them as a single species; when the IOC names are selected in eBird, the eBird version of Green-winged Teal (Anas crecca) will appear as Eurasian/Green-winged Teal, to represent the split. All differences between IOC and eBird are documented at Avibase. Special thanks to Denis Lepage (who manages the Avibase site) for his role in making this taxonomic matchup possible between the two taxonomies.
English, Kenya (en_KE) -- Follows 2009 Checklist of the Birds of Kenya (Fourth Edition) (© Bird Committee, Nature Kenya—the East Africa Natural History Society, September 2009) but with some taxonomic differences. The following species are split by Checklist of the Birds of Kenya and reflect the common name used therein, but the scientific name indicates that it is treated as the lumped species in totals: Little and Dimorphic Egret, Barbary and Peregrine Falcons, Coastal and Winding Cisticola, Usambara and Eastern Double-collared Sunbirds. In addition, these species are split by eBird and should be reported as the split form: Common and Somali Ostriches, Blue and Green Yellowbill, Northern and Tanzania Red-billed Hornbill, African and Mountain Grey Woodpeckers, Tropical, Ethiopian, and Zanzibar Boubous, Red-tailed and Isabelle Shrike, African and Western Citril, Kenya Rufous Sparrow and Shelley’s Rufous Sparrow, and Grey-headed Sparrow is split into three species in Kenya: Northern Grey-headed, Parrot-billed Sparrow, and Swahili Sparrow. In addition, a few modifications are made to clarify splits adopted by eBird. Thus, the eBird names for English (Kenya) further differ from Checklist of the Birds of Kenya by showing Tropical Shearwater instead of Audubon’s Shearwater, African Swamphen instead of Purple Swamphen, and Western Yellow Wagtail instead of Yellow Wagtail. eBird splits Emberiza sahari from Emberiza striolata, with the latter occurring in Kenya; here we use the name House Bunting for striolata and Western House Bunting for E. sahari. The name Olive Thrush is used here (instead of Abyssinian Thrush) for the Kenya species, which has the new scientific name of Turdus abyssinicus since eBird observes the seven-way split for the bird formerly known widely as Olive Thrush; the species Turdus olivaceus is renamed South African Olive Thrush to avoid confusion.
English, Malaysia (en_MY) -- This is the same name set that we use in eBird with one minor difference: all names using the American spelling "Gray" instead use the spelling "Grey", including Greylag and Greytail. Feel free to use this even if you don't bird regularly in Malaysia!
English, New Zealand (en_NZ) -- This name set customizes our baseline names for the species of New Zealand to match prevailing usage in the region. Thanks to our team New Zealand eBird team, especially to Paul Scofield for providing and maintaining these names.
English, Philippines (en_PH) -- In 2015, The Wild Bird Club of the Philippines (WBCP) officially endorsed eBird for its membership. This set of names follows the IOC English names with a few exceptions that are maintained by the WBCP. Special thanks to Christian Perez for providing and maintaining these names.
English, South Africa (en_ZA) -- This name set uses customizes our baseline names for the species of Southern Africa to match prevailing usage in the region; outside the region it uses IOC names (see above). It is intended to apply throughout the Southern Africa (not just for South Africa itself), including the countries of South Africa, Eswatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, and Zambia. Thanks to Johnny Wilson for providing and maintaining these names and to Ethan Kistler for past help with these names.
English, UAE (en_AE) -- This name set customizes our baseline names for the species of the Middle East to match prevailing usage in the region and the names used by the Ornithological Society of the Middle East (OSME). It is intended to apply throughout the Middle East (not just for the UAE). Thanks to Tommy Pedersen for providing and maintaining these names.
English, United Kingdom (en_UK) -- This name set customizes our baseline names for the species of the Western Palearctic to match prevailing usage in the United Kingdom. The names mostly match those used by the British Ornithological Union (BOU) and the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO). Thanks to Dominic Mitchell and Stuart Fisher for providing and maintaining these names.
English, United States (en_US) -- English and English (United States) both give the same set of names, which are the primary English names exactly as they appear in the eBird/Clements Checklist.
Faroese (fo) -- Limited to species known from the Faroe Islands. Thanks to Svein-Ole Mikalsen for providing and maintaining these names.
Finnish (fi) -- Includes most species of the Western Palearctic including all species known from Finland. Thanks to Seppo Niemispelto and Erkki Pöytäniemi for providing and maintaining these names.
French (fr) -- This is a GLOBAL set of names. Many thanks to Denis Lepage who provides and maintains these names and assists with eBird/Clements taxonomy and nomenclature in countless ways.
French, AOU (fr_AOU) -- This name set customizes our baseline global set of French names to match those used in the American Ornithologists' Society (AOS) Check-list of North and Middle American Birds, as of its most recent supplement. Thanks to Denis Lepage for helping to maintain these names.
French, France (fr_FR) -- This name set customizes our baseline global set of French names to modify a few names for the official names used in France. Thanks to our France review team, and especially Adrien Mauss, for providing and helping to maintain these names.
French, Canada (fr_CA) -- This name set customizes our baseline global set of French names to modify a few confusing names for Canada. Thanks to Jean-Sébastien Guénette and Denis Lepage for helping to maintain these names.
French, French Guiana (fr_GF) -- This name set customizes our baseline global set of French names to match those used in French Guiana, as of its most recent version. Thanks to Olivier Claessens for providing and helping to maintain these names.
French, Guadeloupe (fr_GP) -- This name set customizes our baseline global set of French names to match prevailing usage for a few species in Guadeloupe. Thanks to Anthony Levesque for providing and maintaining these names.
French, Haiti (fr_HT) -- This name set customizes the global set of French names for all species known from Haiti. Thanks to Jim Goetz and Ms. Benjamin Francoise for providing and maintaining these names.
Gallegan (gl) -- Limited to species known from Spain. Thanks to our eBird España team, and especially to Xabier Vázquez Pumariño and Javier Morala for providing and maintaining these names.
German (de) -- This is a GLOBAL set of names. This set of names follows the global set of names for the IOC taxonomy and published in Barthel PH, Barthel C, Bezzel E, Eckhoff P, van den Elzen R, Hinkelmann C & Steinheimer FD (2020). German names of the birds of the world (Deutsche Namen der Vögel der Erde). Vogelwarte 58: 1-214. Many thanks to Peter H. Barthel, Thomas Döbel, and Coleta Holzhäuser, for providing and maintaining these names.
Greek (el) -- Includes all the species of the Western Palearctic. Thanks to Lefteris Stavrakas for providing and maintaining these names.
Gujarati (gu) -- Includes 100 most common species in the region. Thanks to Bird Count India, especially Maulik Varu, Dhaval Vargiya, and Prasad Ganpule, for providing and maintaining these names.
Hebrew (he) -- Limited to the species known from Israel and Palestinian Territory. Thanks to our eBird Israel team, and especially Yoav Perlman, for providing and maintaining these names.
Hindi (hi) -- Includes 100 most common species in the region. Thanks to Bird Count India, especially Hakimuddin Saify, Monica Kaushik, Praver Mourya, and Mittal Gala, for providing and maintaining these names.
Hungarian (hu) -- Limited to the species known from Hungary. Thanks to Katherine Collin and Miklos Csuros for providing and maintaining these names.
Icelandic (is) -- This set of names covers about HALF OF GLOBAL SPECIES, including all species known from Iceland. Thanks to Yann Kolbeinsson for providing and maintaining these names.
Indonesian (in) -- Limited to species known from Indonesia. Thanks to Mat Gilfedder for providing and maintaining these names.
Italian (it) -- Limited to species known from Italy. Thanks to Ottavio Janni, Paulo Matteuci, Pietro Melandri, Samuele Ramellini, and James Fox for providing and maintaining these names.
Japanese (ja)-- This is a GLOBAL set of names. Thanks to our review team for Japan, and especially Denis Lepage, Carlos Ross, Yann Muzika, and Katarzyna Ganderska-Someya who provide and maintain these names.
Kannada (kn) -- Limited to the species of southern India. Thanks to Bird Count India, especially Dhanush Shetty and Subbu Sbramanya, for providing and maintaining these names.
Korean (ko) -- Limited to species known from South Korea and North Korea. These names follow those used in the Birds Korea Checklist by Moores, N., Ha J-M. & Seo H-M (2018), published by Birds Korea. Thanks to Nial Moores and Jungmoon Ha for providing and maintaining these names.
Latvian (lv) -- Limited to species known from Latvia. Thanks to Pēteris Daknis for providing and maintaining these names.
Lithuanian (lt) -- Includes all the species of the Western Palearctic. Thanks to Boris Belchev for providing and maintaining these names.
Malayalam (ml) -- Limited to the species of southern India. Thanks to Bird Count India, especially Abhinand Chandran and C Sashikumar for providing and maintaining these names.
Marathi (mr) -- Includes the species of southern India. Thanks to Bird Count India, especially Pooja Pawar, and Saurabh Sawant for providing and maintaining these names.
Mongolian (mn) -- Limited to species known from Mongolia. Thanks to Batmunkh Davaasuren and Purevsuren Tsolmonjav for providing and maintaining these names.
Norwegian (no) -- Complete GLOBAL list of birds. Thanks to Harald Steensland and Jens Fossum for providing and maintaining these names.
Odia (or) -- Includes 100 most common species in the region. Thanks to Bird Count India, especially Swetashree Purohit, for providing and maintaining these names.
Persian (fa) -- Limited to species known from Iran. Thanks to Alireza Hashemi for providing and maintaining these names.
Polish (pl) -- Almost a complete GLOBAL set of names. Thanks to Sławomir Karpicki-Ignatowski for providing and maintaining these names.
Portuguese, Angola (pt_AO) -- Limited to species known from Angola. Thanks to Naom Shany and Angela Warsi Dos Santos Ferreira for providing these translations and coordinating with other versions of Portuguese. For species that do not have a name for Angolan Portuguese, the name will next appear in Portuguese for Portugal, followed by Brasilian Portuguese.
Portuguese, Azores (pt_RAA) -- Regional customization from Portugal, Portuguese, for a few species of the region. Thanks to our eBird Portugal team, especially Rúben Coelho, for providing and maintaining these names.
Portuguese, Brazil (pt_BR) -- Limited to species known from Brasil. This list follows the species recognized by the Comitê Brasileiro de Registros Ornitológicos (CBRO) , the official committee for taxonomy and nomenclature in Brasil. Thanks to our eBird Brasil team. This version of the names matches the CBRO 2015 taxonomy with some updates since then. Thanks to our eBird Brasil team, and especially Carlos Gussoni, Vitor Piacentini, and Alex Lees providing and maintaining these updates. Note that the taxonomy aligns primarily with CBRO and since the Clements Checklist largely follows SACC, the species limits do not match in all cases. When this setting is selected, the Portugal names will show for species that do not have a Brasil name, and will appear in lower-case (matching CBRO style).
Portuguese, Madeira (pt_RAM) -- Regional customization from Portugal, Portuguese, for a few species of the region. Thanks to our eBird Portugal team, especially Cátia Gouveia, for providing and maintaining these names.
Portuguese, Portugal (pt_PT) -- Includes most species known from the Western Palearctic and all species known from Portugal, as well as many others globally. Thanks to our eBird Portugal team, especially Pedro Fernandes and Pedro Cardia for providing and maintaining these names. For South American species that have a Brasilian name, that name appears in Brasilian Portuguese using the CBRO name, but appears in upper-case matching the conventions of species names in Portuguese for Portugal.
Punjabi (pa) – Includes the 100 most common species in the region. Thanks to Bird Count India, especially Gurpartap Singh and Gagan Bedi, for providing and maintaining these names.
Romanian (ro) -- Limited to species known from Romania. Thanks to Florin Chirila for providing and maintaining these names.
Russian (ru) -- Covering about half of GLOBAL species, including all species reported in Russia and Ukraine. Thanks to Andrey Vlasenko and Nathan Pieplow for providing and maintaining these names.
Serbian (sr) -- Almost GLOBAL list. Thanks to Zheljko Stanimirovic for providing and maintaining these names.
Slovak (sk) -- Complete GLOBAL list of birds. Thanks to Peter Kovalik for providing and maintaining these names.
Slovenian (sl) -- Limited to species known from Slovenia. Thanks to Al Bozic for providing and maintaining these names.
Spanish (es) -- Complete GLOBAL list of birds in Spanish. This set of names is currently identical to the Spanish (Spain) name set maintained by our eBird España team, but uses different capitalization rules (Paloma Torcaz as opposed to the Spain version, Paloma torcaz).
Spanish, Argentina (es_AR) -- Limited to species known from Argentina. Thanks to our eBird Argentina team, especially Fabricio Gorleri and Nacho Areta, for providing and maintaining these names.
Spanish, Chile (es_CL) -- Limited to species known from Chile. Thanks to our eBird Chile team, especially Fernando Medrano and Fabrice Schmitt for providing and maintaining this list of names.
Spanish, Costa Rica (es_CR) -- Limited to species known or suspected to have occurred in Costa Rica. These names follow those used by the Asociación Ornitológica de Costa Rica (AOCR); thanks to Richard Garrigues for providing and maintaining these names. For species with no Costa Rican Spanish name, this setting will display the Spanish (Panama) followed by the Spanish (Mexico) option instead.
Spanish, Cuba (es_CU) -- Limited to species known from Cuba, following prevailing usage in Cuban Spanish.
Spanish, Dominican Republic (es_DO) -- Limited to species known from the Dominican Republic, following prevailing usage for the Dominican Republic.
Spanish, Ecuador (es_EC) -- Limited to species known from Ecuador. These names are primarily maintained by the Committee for Ecuadorian Records in Ornithology (CERO), with thanks also to Juan Freile Ortiz and Scott Olmstead for their help in customizing them for eBird and maintaining them. For species that do not occur in Ecuador, the Spanish names from Peru, Chile, Argentina, Venezuela, and Spain will appear in that order. Scott and Nick Athanas have also compiled a reference to the English common names of Ecuador used in different field guides, also attached at the bottom of this page. Feel free to email Nick (nick.athanas@gmail.com) or Scott (sparverius81@hotmail.com) for questions or suggestions.
Spanish, Honduras (es_HN) -- Limited to species known from Honduras. Thanks to our eBird Centroamérica team and the Aves Honduras Science Committee (Francisco Dubón, Luis Herrera, Roselvy Juárez, Oliver Komar, Fabiola Rodríguez, and John van Dort).
Spanish, Mexico (es_MX) -- Includes most species in North America and some from northern South America, as well as all species of Mexico. Thanks to our aVerAves team, and especially to Humberto Berlanga, Hector Gomez de Silva, and Vicente Rodriguez, for providing these names. Names for species that do not occur in this area come from the global set of names in Spanish (Spain) provided by our eBird España team.
Spanish, Panama (es_PA) -- Limited to species known from Panama. Thanks to our eBird Panama team, and especially Darién Montañez and Jan Axel Cubilla, who provide and maintain these names.
Spanish, Paraguay (es_PY) -- Limited to species known from Paraguay. Thanks to our eBird Paraguay team, through Guyra Paraguay, and especially to Hugo del Castillo for providing and maintaining these names. For species with no Paraguayan Spanish name, this setting will display the Spanish (Spain) option instead.
Spanish, Peru (es_PE) -- Limited to species known from Peru. Thanks to our eBird Perú team, and especially Fernando Angulo, who provides and maintains these names in accord with the list maintained by Manual Plenge. The current version matches Plenge, M. A. Version 1 Aug 2021. List of the birds of Peru / Lista de las aves del Perú. Unión de Ornitólogos del Perú: https://sites.google.com/site/boletinunop/checklist. For species with no Peruvian Spanish name, this setting will display the Spanish (Spain) option instead.
Spanish, Puerto Rico (es_PR) -- Limited to species known from Puerto Rico. Thanks to our Puerto Rico eBird team for providing and maintaining these names.
Spanish, Spain (es_ES) -- A GLOBAL list. Thanks to our eBird España team, and especially to Alfonso Rodrígo, Javier Morala and the eBird Spain naming team for providing and maintaining these names.
Spanish, Uruguay (es_UY) -- Limited to species known from Uruguay. Thanks to the eBird Uruguay team from Aves Uruguay for providing and maintaining these names.
Spanish, Venezuela (es_VE) -- Limited to species known from Venezuela; subspecies will generally appear in English. Thanks to Jhonathan Miranda and Beto Matheus for providing and maintaining these names.
Swedish (sv) -- Nearly complete GLOBAL translation to Swedish, using the IOC taxonomy. This list can thus be seen as a list of eBird's "English, IOC" translation above that is then translated to Swedish; when species are split by IOC but lumped by eBird/Clements they will appear as a slash (e.g., Anas crecca crecca/nimia and Anas crecca carolinensis are split by IOC, but not by eBird/Clements). See "English, IOC" above. Note that a few taxa still are untranslated because of mismatches between the eBird/Clements and IOC taxonomies. Thanks to Erling Jirle and Örjan Sjögren for providing and maintaining these names.
Telugu (te) -- Includes 100 most common species in the region. Thanks to Bird Count India, especially Raja Sekhar Bandi and Chandra Sekhar Bandi, for providing and maintaining these names.
Thai (th) -- Limited to species known from Thailand. Thanks to Wich'yanan Lim (Jay) for providing and maintaining these names.
Turkish (tr) -- A complete GLOBAL list. Thanks to Kerem Ali Boyla and Sancar Barış for providing and maintaining these names.
Ukrainian (uk) -- Limited to species known from Ukraine. Thanks to Iurii Strus, Roman Yaremchuk, Hanna Kuzo, Kateryna Krempa, and Anna Vertehel for providing and maintaining these names.
Zulu (zu) -- Limited to species known from South Africa. Thanks to Eckhart Buchmann and Johnny Wilson for providing and maintaining these names.