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Cowbird
Cowbirds (Molothrus) are six New World icterid blackbird species that are obligate brood parasites, laying eggs in other birds' nests; the brown-headed cowbird uses over 220 host species and numbers 130 million.
Cracidae
Cracidae, the chachalacas, guans, and curassows, is a Neotropical family of 11 genera and about 50 arboreal galliform birds from south Texas to Argentina, frugivorous seed dispersers, with about half the species threatened by hunting and deforestation.
Crane (bird)
Cranes are large, long-legged, long-necked birds of the family Gruidae, with 15 species across Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America, and 10 are threatened with extinction.
Crax
Crax is a genus of large, ground-dwelling curassows in the family Cracidae, tropical American gamebirds whose seven species are all threatened by hunting and habitat loss.
Crax blumenbachii
Crax blumenbachii, red-billed curassow, is an Endangered Cracidae gamebird endemic to Brazil's Atlantic Forest; a 1990 reintroduction released 200+ birds in Minas Gerais, and it disperses seeds of 80 plant species up to 300–500 m.
Crested penguin
Crested penguins, genus Eudyptes, are sub-Antarctic penguins with yellow crests that lay two eggs but raise one chick; species include macaroni, rockhopper, Fiordland, Snares, royal, and erect-crested penguins.
Crex
Crex, a rail genus (Rallidae) erected by Bechstein in 1803, holds the corncrake Crex crex and formerly the African crake C. egregia; phylogenomics shows it is not monophyletic, and Crecopsis is proposed for the African crake.
Crimson rosella
Crimson rosella (Platycercus elegans), an Australian parrot with crimson, yellow, and orange colour forms; 32-36 cm, tree-hollow nester, native to eastern Australia, introduced to Norfolk Island and New Zealand, IUCN Least Concern.
Crop milk
Crop milk (pigeon milk) is a nutritive secretion pigeons, doves, flamingos, and emperor penguins feed their young, made from sloughed crop or esophageal cells, prolactin-regulated, protein- and fat-rich, and produced by both sexes in pigeons.
Crow
Crow: any of about 46-50 species of genus Corvus, family Corvidae, black omnivorous songbirds found worldwide except Antarctica; known for winter roosts of up to two million birds, tool use, and primate-like cognition.
Crowned Crane
Balearica is the crane genus (subfamily Balearicinae) containing Africa's two crowned cranes, Black Crowned Crane Balearica pavonina and Grey Crowned Crane Balearica regulorum; the oldest crane lineage, tree-roosting, with both species threatened.
Crowned eagle
Crowned eagle (Stephanoaetus coronatus), African crowned eagle or crowned hawk-eagle: a powerful crested forest raptor of sub-Saharan Africa, Africa's most powerful eagle by prey weight, killing animals up to 20 kg, and Near Threatened globally.
Crypturellus
Crypturellus (Brabourne & Chubb, 1914) is the largest genus of tinamous, forest-dwelling Neotropical palaeognath birds from Mexico to South America, including the Thicket, Undulated, and Little Tinamous.
Cuckoo
The cuckoo is a bird of the family Cuculidae, about 156 species worldwide, best known for the Common Cuckoo's habit of laying eggs in other birds' nests.
Cuculiformes
Cuculiformes, the cuckoo order (Cuculidae), comprises roughly 129–156 species of cuckoos, coucals, anis, and roadrunners on all continents except Antarctica, famed for brood parasitism evolved three times within the order.
Cuculus
Cuculus, the Eurasian cuckoos (genus Cuculus, Linnaeus 1758), is a genus of 11 Old World brood-parasitic cuckoos in Cuculidae; type species the common cuckoo Cuculus canorus, Least Concern globally but declining in Britain.
Cultural depictions of ravens
Cultural depictions of ravens: the common raven as creator-trickster in Pacific Northwest (Tlingit) myth, Odin's ravens Huginn and Muninn in Norse lore, Celtic war symbol, Poe's The Raven, and the 2021 Raven Story stamp.
Curruca
Curruca is a genus of Sylviidae warblers (Bechstein, 1802), type species the Lesser Whitethroat, Curruca curruca, formerly Sylvia curruca; split from Sylvia on molecular phylogenetic evidence.
Cyanistes
Cyanistes is a genus of Paridae tits (Eurasian Blue Tit C. caeruleus, Azure Tit C. cyanus, African Blue Tit C. teneriffae), formerly a Parus subgenus, restored to genus rank after 2005 molecular phylogenies.
Cyanocitta
Cyanocitta (blue jays) is a corvid genus established by Strickland in 1845 with two species, the Blue Jay (C. cristata) and Steller's Jay (C. stelleri), sister lineages split about 6.36 million years ago.
Cyanocorax
Cyanocorax, the tufted jays, a genus of seventeen New World jay species from the southern United States to Argentina. Known for cooperative polyandrous breeding, diverse plumage, and a taxonomy once split into Xanthoura, Cissilopha, and Uroleuca.
Cyanopica
Cyanopica, azure-winged magpies, genus of Corvidae with two twin species: Iberian magpie C. cooki and Asian azure-winged magpie C. cyanus, disjunct ~13,000 km apart, split on molecular evidence, cooperative breeders.
Cygnus columbianus
Cygnus columbianus, the tundra swan (whistling swan; Bewick's swan, C. c. bewickii), is a Holarctic swan breeding on Arctic tundra and wintering on US coasts, Europe, and east Asia; IUCN Least Concern, 221,000–234,000 mature individuals.
Cygnus cygnus
Cygnus cygnus, the Whooper Swan (Singschwan, cygne chanteur), a large migratory Eurasian swan with a yellow bill wedge; IUCN Least Concern, about 176,000 mature individuals, increasing, wintering in Britain, Ireland, and East Asia.
Dark-eyed junco
Dark-eyed junco (Junco hyemalis), also called snowbird, a common North American forest sparrow with about 15 subspecies including Slate-colored and Oregon forms, lumped from up to seven species in the 1980s; population roughly 630 million.
Darwin's finches
Darwin's finches: about 18 species of tanagers (not true finches) endemic to Galápagos and Cocos Island, famous for adaptive beak evolution, the Grants' Daphne Major studies, BMP4/ALX1/HMGA2 genetics, and the Big Bird incipient species.
Deinocheirus
Deinocheirus mirificus, a giant ornithomimosaur dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous Nemegt Formation of Mongolia, known for 2.4 m arms found in 1965; complete 2014 skeletons revealed an 11 m, 6.4-ton hump-backed, duck-billed omnivore.
Delichon
Delichon, house martins, a genus of four swallow species (urbicum, lagopodum, dasypus, nipalense) breeding across Eurasia; mud nests under eaves, colonial, migratory, white rump.
Dendragapus
Dendragapus is a genus of large North American forest grouse (Phasianidae) established by Elliot in 1864, holding the Dusky Grouse (D. obscurus) and Sooty Grouse (D. fuliginosus), split from the former Blue Grouse in 2006 on genetic and behavioral evidence.
Dendrocopos
Dendrocopos (pied woodpeckers) is a Picidae genus erected by Koch in 1816, holding about 12 Eurasian and North African species such as D. major, D. leucotos, and D. syriacus; molecular phylogenies show it is not monophyletic, prompting IOC generic splits.