''List of Recent Holarctic Bird Species'' is a 1977 book by Karel H. Voous, published by the British Ornithologists' Union. It contains a list of 1,921 bird species recorded from the

Holarctic The Holarctic realm is a biogeographic realm that comprises the majority of habitats found throughout the continents in the Northern Hemisphere. It corresponds to the floristic Boreal Kingdom. It includes both the Nearctic zoogeographical reg ...

zoogeographic region Zoogeography is the branch of the science of biogeography that is concerned with geographic distribution (present and past) of animal species. As a multifaceted field of study, zoogeography incorporates methods of molecular biology, genetics, mor ...

. It was widely adopted by ornithologists in Europe as a standard baseline list. It was originally published in two parts in the BOU's journal

Ibis The ibises () (collective plural ibis; classical plurals ibides and ibes) are a group of long-legged wading birds in the family Threskiornithidae, that inhabit wetlands, forests and plains. "Ibis" derives from the Latin and Ancient Greek word ...

: that covering the non-passerines in 1973, and the

passerine A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped'), which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines are distinguished from other orders of birds by th ...

part in 1977. The list has been reprinted twice, in 1980 and 1991. It contains a foreword by Sir Hugh Elliott.

Geographical scope

In the western Palearctic region, the list adopts the same geographical limits as those used by the editors of the

handbook A handbook is a type of reference work, or other collection of instructions, that is intended to provide ready reference. The term originally applied to a small or portable book containing information useful for its owner, but the ''Oxford Engl ...

The Birds of the Western Palearctic ''The Birds of the Western Palearctic'' (full title ''Handbook of the Birds of Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa: The Birds of the Western Palearctic''; often referred to by the initials ''BWP'') is a nine-volume ornithological handbook c ...

''. The whole of the Arabian peninsula and

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

are also included; further east, Voous followed the boundaries used by

Hartert Ernst Johann Otto Hartert (29 October 1859 – 11 November 1933) was a widely published German ornithologist. Life and career Hartert was born in Hamburg, Germany on 29 October 1859. In July 1891, he married the illustrator Claudia Bernadine E ...

(1903–1923) and Vaurie (1959, 1965). In the

Nearctic The Nearctic realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting the Earth's land surface. The Nearctic realm covers most of North America, including Greenland, Central Florida, and the highlands of Mexico. The parts of North America ...

region, the list covers all of the continental U.S. and Canada, the

Bahama Islands The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to 88% of the a ...

, plus the non-tropical parts of

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

(defined as the states of

Baja California Baja California (; 'Lower California'), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California), is a state in Mexico. It is the northernmost and westernmost of the 32 federal entities of Mex ...

, Sonora, Chihuahua, Durango,

Zacatecas , image_map = Zacatecas in Mexico (location map scheme).svg , map_caption = State of Zacatecas within Mexico , coordinates = , coor_pinpoint = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type ...

, Aguascalientes, Guanajuato, Querétaro,

México Mexico ( Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatem ...

Distrito Federal A federal district is a type of administrative division of a federation, usually under the direct control of a federal government and organized sometimes with a single municipal body. Federal districts often include capital districts, and they ...

, Coahuila and Nuevo León). Voous, K. H. (1977) page 1

Footnotes

Bibliography

Voous, K. H. (1977) ''List of Recent Holarctic Bird Species'' British Ornithologists' Union Ornithological checklists 1977 non-fiction books {{bird-book-stub