Our planet has a bounty of birds—more than 11,000 species in all. But on a global scale, most have relatively small ranges. And only a few dozen species can be called “cosmopolitan,” with ranges that touch six continents or at least three oceans. These are the birds that tie our human world together—birds that nearly all of us have in common.
The Barn Swallow at the top of this page is one of the best examples: a bird weighing less than an ounce, whose migratory routes touch Canada, Tierra del Fuego, Norway, Namibia, Russia, Australia, and most places in between. Their gleaming colors and graceful aerobatics delight birdwatchers on every continent save Antarctica.
Follow us on a tour of our favorite cosmopolitan birds—whether over land, in cities and towns, or out at sea.
The Birds of six continents
A Peregrine Falcon evades a Black Kite in India. Peregrine Falcons occur on every continent except Antarctica. (Black Kites are absent from the Americas.) Photo by Kakul Paul / Macaulay Library.If you took a highlighter and outlined all the coastlines of the world, you’d be pretty close to drawing the range map for Ruddy Turnstone—a truly cosmopolitan shorebird. Photo (Japan) by Ayuwat Jearwattanakanok / Macaulay Library.Black-bellied Plover (often called Grey Plover outside the U.S.) is another shorebird that you can see on virtually any beach in the world. Photo (Russia) by Volkov Sergey / Macaulay Library.Ospreys hunt fish along coasts and waterways all around the globe. Photo (Sweden) by Marc Fasol / Macaulay Library.Sanderlings breed in the northernmost reaches of the globe and spend the rest of the year chasing waves in and out on six continents. Photo (South Africa) by Michael Buckham / Macaulay Library.The magnificent Caspian Tern—largest tern in the world—often occurs inland in places like the Nile Valley, interior Australia, and Kazakhstan. Photo (Western Sahara) by Yeray Seminario / Macaulay Library.Glossy Ibises have a spotty distribution, but their range does touch six continents, giving birders the world over a chance to admire this bird’s spectacular iridescence. Photo (Türkiye) by Soner Sabirli / Macaulay Library.Whimbrels wing their way along the coastlines of six continents to prey on fiddler crabs and other marine invertebrates. Photo (Morocco) by Max Khoo / Macaulay Library.Though their grace and poise can make a Great Egret sighting feel like a rare moment, their range blankets much of the inhabited world—only absent from deserts and the far north. Photo (Delaware) by Hannah Greenberg / Macaulay Library.
The birds We Bring With Us
With their seemingly inexhaustible talent for flight, birds are inherently good at finding new places to live (see the Western Cattle Egret below for a good example). But some species get a helping hand from humans. Some, like Rock Pigeons and House Sparrows, formed a bond with humans centuries ago and have followed us around ever since. Others are brought along for a variety of reasons—parrots and parakeets come with us as pets, for instance—but may escape or be released and gain a toehold on a new continent.
A European Starling shows off its rainbow brilliance in Israel—a part of its native range. Introductions have brought starlings to New Zealand, southeast Australia, South Africa, Argentina, and virtually all of North America. Photo by Uriel Levy / Macaulay Library.Native to India and sub-Saharan Africa, Rose-ringed Parakeets have established populations as far away as Sydney, Tokyo, London, Los Angeles, Riyadh, and Caracas. Photo (India) by Raghavendra Pai / Macaulay Library.Rock Pigeons were domesticated 5,000 years ago and have moved around the world with humans ever since. Photo (Oregon) by Brad Imhoff / Macaulay Library.House Sparrows have been living alongside humans for centuries. Photo (Kuwait) by Lukasz Ifczok / Macaulay Library.
ocean Travelers
Arctic Tern: Superstar Cosmopolitan. These champion migrators fly from the Arctic to Antarctica and back—25,000 miles per year. When it’s time to molt, they sit on a patch of pack ice while they regrow their feathers, then keep going. Photo (Finland) by Matti Rekilä / Macaulay Library.
Oceans cover more than two-thirds of the planet, and birds have evolved to exist across most of that endless blue-gray habitat. The Arctic Tern is famous for covering a distance equal to the circumference of the Earth every year. With a lifespan that can exceed 30 years, an Arctic Tern might travel three-quarters of a million miles in its lifetime. Plenty of other seabirds have the ability to spend years on the wing, without touching land—following are a few examples of species that touch at least three of the world’s five oceans in their travels.
An endurance migrant to rival the Arctic Tern, the Sooty Shearwater can be found in ocean waters from Greenland to Tierra del Fuego and Tasmania to Kamchatka. Photo (Australia) by David Sinnott / Macaulay Library.The Long-tailed Jaeger breeds in the Arctic and then fans out across the other four oceans: Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, and Southern. Photo (Sweden) by Ivan Sjögren / Macaulay Library.Red-necked Phalaropes are tiny sandpipers that nest on tundra, migrate through coastal waters, and winter on the open ocean in the Pacific, Indonesia, and Arabian Sea. Photo (Iceland) by Joshua Hogan / Macaulay Library.Wilson’s Storm-Petrels breed in Antarctica yet still manage to be one of the most common pelagic seabirds in the rest of the world, only absent from the North Pacific and Arctic. Photo (North Carolina) by Kate Sutherland / Macaulay Library.Sooty Tern is one of several seabird species that occur in a broad band across all the world’s tropical oceans. Photo (Midway Island, Pacific Ocean) by Jonathan Plissner / Macaulay Library.Several species of boobies are widespread in tropical oceans, including the Brown Booby. Photo (Thailand) by Natthaphat Chotjuckdikul / Macaulay Library.Frigatebirds are famous for the males’ outrageous red throat sac. Of the five species, Great Frigatebird has the largest range and occurs in the tropical Pacific, Indian, and parts of the Atlantic Oceans. Photo (Galápagos) by WIlliam Richards / Macaulay Library.
Honorable Mentions
The Short-eared Owl is almost a cosmopolitan species. Its range doesn’t quite reach Australia, though it has managed to colonize several oceanic islands including Hawaii. Photo (Alaska) by Nathan Kelly / Macaulay Library.
The world is a big place, and some widespread bird species don’t quite make it to that sixth continent. Some species fall short through the vagaries of taxonomic changes—for instance the cosmopolitan species previously known as Cattle Egret was recently split into two species (Western and Eastern Cattle Egrets), neither of which make it to six continents. Others, like the Black-crowned Night Heron, come oh-so-close to that sixth continent, but fall just short. We love them anyway: these are our honorable mentions.
By turns beautiful and enigmatic, the Barn Owl makes our cosmopolitan list—at least temporarily. As of press time, it’s scheduled to be split into three species later in 2024. Photo (Australia) by Brett Mezen / Macaulay Library.Bank Swallows (known as Sand Martins in the U.K.) occur across most of the world, though the closest they regularly get to Australia is Borneo. Photo (China) by Vincent Wang / Macaulay Library.Black-crowned Night Herons are the most widespread of the nine night heron species, but don’t quite reach the Australian continent (they get as close as East Timor). Photo (Montenegro) by Jérémy Calvo / Macaulay Library.Cattle egrets qualified as a cosmopolitan species up until 2023, when taxonomists split them into two species. These enterprising birds colonized South America (from Africa) in 1877, and reached North America in the early 20th century, all without human assistance. Western Cattle Egret photo (Slovakia) by Slávka Michalková / Macaulay Library.The Gull-billed Tern is another species that lost its cosmopolitan status recently, when taxonomists separated a population in Australia as its own species, the Australian Tern. Image (Bermuda) by Tim White / Macaulay Library.
