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Petroica
Petroica (Swainson, 1829) is a genus of Australo-Papuan robins (Petroicidae) spanning Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand, and the Pacific, including the New Zealand robin, tomtit, black robin, and scarlet and Pacific robins.
Petronia
Petronia is a genus of Old World sparrows in the family Passeridae, established by Johann Jakob Kaup in 1829 and holding a single species, the rock sparrow.
Phaethornis
Phaethornis (hermit hummingbirds) is a genus of Trochilidae erected by Swainson in 1827; long-billed Neotropical trapliners including P. longirostris, P. guy, and P. mexicanus.
Phalacrocorax
Phalacrocorax Brisson, 1760 is the cormorant genus of Phalacrocoracidae, type species the Great Cormorant P. carbo; once used for all cormorants and shags, now one of seven genera after Kennedy and Spencer's 2014 DNA phylogeny.
Phalaropus
Phalaropus (phalaropes) is a genus of three Scolopacidae shorebird species, Wilson's, Red, and Red-necked Phalarope, known for sex-role reversal, polyandrous females, male-only incubation, and spinning surface feeding.
Phasianidae
Phasianidae, the pheasant family (Pheasants & Allies), is the largest family of Galliformes, with over 50 genera and 214+ species including pheasants, partridges, grouse, turkeys, and Old World quail; chickens derive from Gallus gallus.
Pheasant
Pheasant (Phasianus colchicus), the ring-necked or common pheasant, an Asian gamebird introduced worldwide; about 47 million released annually in the UK, established in the US since 1881, with documented ecological effects near release sites.
Philemon
Philemon (friarbirds, leatherheads) is a genus of about 15 large honeyeaters (Meliphagidae) of Australia, New Guinea, and Wallacea, with bare grey heads, some with a bill casque, feeding on nectar, fruit, and insects.
Philippine eagle
Philippine eagle (Pithecophaga jefferyi), the Philippines' national bird, a critically endangered forest raptor endemic to Luzon, Samar, Leyte, and Mindanao; about 392 breeding pairs remain, threatened by shooting and habitat loss, with PEF captive breeding and Leyte reintroduction underway.
Phoebastria
Phoebastria, the North Pacific albatrosses (genus Reichenbach, 1853): four species, short-tailed, Laysan, black-footed, and waved albatross, restored by 1996 cytochrome-b phylogeny; conservation statuses range from Near Threatened to Critically Endangered.
Phoebastria albatrus
Phoebastria albatross, the Short-tailed Albatross, is a North Pacific seabird driven nearly to extinction by feather hunting around 1900 and since recovered to about 5,000 birds.
Phoebe Snetsinger
Phoebe Snetsinger (1931–1999), American birder of Webster Groves, Missouri; first person to list over 8,000 bird species after a 1981 terminal melanoma diagnosis; died in a Madagascar van crash; memoir Birding on Borrowed Time.
Phoenicopterus
Phoenicopterus is the Linnaean genus of shallow-keeled flamingos, holding the American, greater, and Chilean flamingos; formerly all six flamingo species were placed in it before molecular phylogenetics split the deep-keeled species into Phoenicoparrus and Phoeniconaias.
Phoenicopterus chilensis
Phoenicopterus chilensis, the Chilean flamingo (flamenco chileno), is a large South American flamingo breeding from Peru to Tierra del Fuego; about 300,000 birds, Near Threatened, threatened by egg-harvesting, mining, and wetland loss.
Phoenicurus
Phoenicurus, the redstart genus (Forster, 1817), Muscicapidae passerines named for red tails; 14 species of late Miocene Himalayan origin, including the common redstart P. phoenicurus and black redstart P. ochruros.
Phorusrhacidae
Phorusrhacidae, commonly called terror birds, are an extinct family of large flightless carnivorous birds, dominant predators in South America from the middle Eocene to the latest Pleistocene.
Phylloscopus
Phylloscopus (leaf warblers), genus of small Old World insectivorous songbirds in Phylloscopidae, Boie 1826; 81 species, most diverse in the eastern Himalayas and southern China; Seicercus synonymized into it.
Piaya
Piaya (Lesson, 1830) is a Neotropical genus of large, long-tailed cuckoos in Cuculidae, including the Squirrel Cuckoo (Piaya cayana) and Black-bellied Cuckoo (P. melanogaster); named from Cayenne Creole "Piaye", devil.
Piciformes
Piciformes: order of zygodactyl, cavity-nesting birds (woodpeckers, toucans, barbets, honeyguides, jacamars, puffbirds), named 1810 by Meyer and Wolf; about 445–449 species in 9 families, Galbuliformes merged in 2025.
Picoides
Picoides (Lacépède, 1799) is a woodpecker genus, once the largest in Picidae, now restricted to the three-toed woodpeckers and black-backed woodpecker after molecular phylogenies showed it was polyphyletic.
Picumnus
Picumnus (Temminck, 1825) is a genus of piculets, tiny woodpeckers of Picidae, with about 25 Neotropical species plus one Asian species, P. innominatus; monophyletic within a paraphyletic Picumninae.
Pileated woodpecker
Pileated woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus, Grand Pic), a crow-sized North American woodpecker with a red crest and rectangular excavations. Largest extant North American woodpecker; feeds mainly on carpenter ants; often confused with the ivory-billed woodpecker.
Pinicola
Pinicola (Pine Grosbeaks) is a monotypic finch genus, Vieillot 1808, family Fringillidae, containing only Pinicola enucleator, the Holarctic Pine Grosbeak, sister to Pyrrhula; not the fungus Fomitopsis pinicola.
Pink-headed duck
Pink-headed duck (Rhodonessa caryophyllacea), a large probably extinct diving duck of India, Bangladesh, and Myanmar, last seen in 1949, with a deep pink-headed male and spherical eggs, listed Critically Endangered.
Pipilo
Pipilo (towhees) is a Vieillot 1816 genus of Passerellidae sparrows holding the rufous-sided towhees: Eastern, Spotted, Green-tailed, Collared, and Bermuda Towhees; brown towhees moved to Melozone.
Pipra
Pipra (Linnaeus, 1764) is a genus of Neotropical manakins (Pipridae) now holding the crimson-hooded, band-tailed, and wire-tailed manakins, after Lepidothrix, Dixiphia, and Ceratopipra were split from the formerly polyphyletic genus.
Pipridae
Pipridae, the manakins, a Neotropical suboscine passerine family of about 55 species in 16 genera; small frugivorous forest birds defined by lekking polygyny, elaborate male displays, and strong sexual dimorphism.
Piranga
Piranga (Northern Tanagers), genus Vieillot 1808 of cardinalid songbirds including Summer, Scarlet, Western, and Hepatic tanagers; moved from Thraupidae to Cardinalidae in 2009 after genetic studies.
Pitangus
Pitangus is a genus of kiskadee tyrant flycatchers (Tyrannidae), chiefly the Great Kiskadee Pitangus sulphuratus, an omnivorous, boldly patterned Neotropical bird, invasive in Bermuda and an agricultural pest in its native range.
Pitta
Pitta (Vieillot, 1816) is a genus of colorful, shy, terrestrial suboscine birds in the family Pittidae, 15–29 cm long, with contested species limits, notable vocal differentiation, and many species of conservation concern.