Birds

Mandarin duck

Mandarin duck (Aix galericulata), East Asian perching duck; male has orange sail feathers. Native to Siberia, China, Japan; naturalized in Britain and western Europe; nests in tree cavities.

Manorina (miners) is a genus of four Australian honeyeaters, Meliphagidae, established by Vieillot in 1818: Yellow-throated, Noisy, Bell, and Black-eared Miners; colonial, aggressive birds, with Bell Miners linked to eucalypt dieback.

Marabou stork

Marabou stork (Leptoptilos crumenifer, also crumeniferus), a large scavenging African stork of the adjutant genus Leptoptilos; up to 1.5 m tall, 9 kg, IUCN Least Concern globally but Near Threatened regionally in South Africa.

Mareca

Mareca (Stephens, 1824) is a genus of dabbling ducks in Anatidae holding the wigeons, gadwall, falcated duck, and extinct Amsterdam Duck; merged into Anas in 1945, resurrected in the 2010s, and recently proposed as an Anas subgenus.

Masius

Masius is a monotypic genus of manakins (Pipridae) erected by Bonaparte in 1850, containing only the Golden-winged Manakin Masius chrysopterus, an 11 cm lekking Andean bird from Venezuela to Peru.

Megascops asio

Megascops asio, the eastern screech-owl (formerly Otus asio), is a small Strigidae owl of eastern North America and northeastern Mexico with gray and rufous morphs, cavity nesting, and Least Concern status.

Melanerpes

Melanerpes, the melanerpine woodpeckers, is a New World genus of 24 picid woodpecker species including the Red-headed, Acorn, Gila, and Lewis's Woodpeckers, defined by Swainson in 1832.

Melanitta

Melanitta, the scoters, is a genus of sea ducks (Anatidae) of northern coasts; species include Common, Black, Velvet, White-winged, Stejneger's, and Surf Scoter, with Velvet Scoter IUCN Vulnerable and Surf Scoter Least Concern.

Melanitta fusca

Melanitta fusca, the Velvet Scoter (also White-winged Scoter in North America, now M. deglandi), is a Vulnerable black sea duck of the Baltic and boreal Eurasia; global population 141,000-268,000, declining about 60% in the Baltic since the 1990s.

Melanitta nigra

The common scoter (Melanitta nigra) is a sea duck in the family Anatidae that breeds in northern Europe, western Siberia, and Greenland and winters in coastal flocks.

Melanotis

Melanotis (Bonaparte, 1850) is a genus of two blue mockingbirds in family Mimidae: the Blue Mockingbird (Melanotis caerulescens) of Mexico and the Blue-and-white Mockingbird (M. hypoleucus); basal mimid lineage, non-mimicking song.

Meleagris

Meleagris is the turkey genus of Phasianidae, with two living species: the wild turkey Meleagris gallopavo (six subspecies, ancestor of all domestic turkeys) and the Yucatán ocellated turkey M. ocellata; extinct relatives include M. californica.

Meliphagidae

Meliphagidae (honeyeaters) is an Australasian passerine bird family, Vigors 1825, of about 174-195 nectar-feeding species in 44-51 genera, defined by brush-tipped specialized tongues and centered on Australia and New Guinea.

Melospiza

Melospiza (Baird, 1858) is a North American genus of Passerellidae sparrows with three species: song sparrow (Melospiza melodia), swamp sparrow (M. georgiana), and Lincoln's sparrow (M. lincolnii).

Mergus

Mergus, the true mergansers or saw-bills, is a genus of serrated-billed fish-eating diving ducks (Anatidae) with four living Northern Hemisphere species, a critically endangered Brazilian species, and two extinct New Zealand relatives.

Mergus serrator

Mergus serrator, the red-breasted merganser, is a holarctic sawbill diving duck described by Linnaeus in 1758; fish make up over 75% of its diet, and it is IUCN Least Concern.

Merlin (bird)

Merlin (Falco columbarius), also called pigeon hawk, a small fierce Northern Hemisphere falcon hunting songbirds and shorebirds at high speed; nests in reused crow or hawk nests, recovered from 1960s DDT declines, now breeds in cities.

Merops

Merops is a genus of bee-eaters in the family Meropidae, established by Linnaeus in 1758, holding most of the world's roughly 22 bee-eater species across Africa, Asia, Europe, and Australia.

Microraptor

Microraptor (Chinese four-winged dromaeosaurid, Early Cretaceous Jiufotang Formation, ~120 Ma) had flight feathers on arms and legs, glided at 9-15 m/s, and its gut contents show fish, birds, lizard, and mammal prey.

Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918

The Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 (MBTA) is a United States federal law making it unlawful to hunt, kill, or possess protected migratory birds without a permit.

Mike the Headless Chicken

Mike the Headless Chicken, or Miracle Mike, was a Wyandotte rooster beheaded in Fruita, Colorado, on 10 September 1945 that survived 18 months with an intact brain stem, toured sideshows, and is honored by an annual festival.

Milvago chimango

Milvago chimango, the chimango caracara, a 40 cm brown South American falconid from Paraguay and Bolivia to Tierra del Fuego; ground-foraging carrion feeder, Not Threatened, known for social learning and urban adaptability.

Milvus

Milvus (Lacépède, 1799) is a genus of Accipitridae kites with three species: black kite Milvus migrans, red kite M. milvus, and yellow-billed kite M. aegyptius; widespread Old World scavenging raptors.

Mimus

Mimus (mockingbirds) is a genus of 14 American passerine birds in family Mimidae, including the Northern Mockingbird Mimus polyglottos; former genera Nesomimus and Mimodes are now synonyms, and four species are endemic to Galapagos.

Moa

Moa were nine species of large flightless birds endemic to New Zealand, and the only birds with no vestige of a wing, extinct by about 1550 CE.

Mockingbird

Mockingbird, chiefly the northern mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos), a Mimidae songbird famed for mimicry; sings repeated phrases, both sexes sing, ~43 million birds, low conservation concern, open-ended learning questioned.

Monachella

Monachella (Salvadori, 1874) is a monotypic genus of Australasian robins (Petroicidae) holding only the Torrent Flyrobin, Monachella muelleriana, a fast-flowing-stream specialist of New Guinea and New Britain, placed in the subfamily Microecinae by molecular phylogeny.

Monarch flycatcher

Monarch flycatchers (Monarchidae, Bonaparte 1854) are an Old World and Pacific passerine family of monarchs, paradise flycatchers, and shrikebills, about 15 genera and 105 species, with Melampitta as sister and several genera paraphyletic.

Monarcha

Monarcha is a genus of monarch flycatchers (family Monarchidae, Passeriformes) established by Vigors & Horsfield in 1827, now restricted to about 7-9 Australo-Pacific species such as the Black-faced Monarch after molecular phylogenies showed the traditional broad genus was paraphyletic.