How many bird species in the world?

"American" Green-winged teal - Photo by Matt Misewicz / Macauley Libray

Eurasian Green-winged Teal - Photo by Guido Bennen / Macauley Library

2 Teals - 1 species or 2 species?

How many bird species are there in the world?   Clements Checklist of Birds currently lists 11,017, whereas the HBW/Birdlife International checklist has 11,524 species.  Some predictions say there could be 18,000 to 20,000 species.

Getting a completely accurate count is tricky, as seen by the Green Teal comparison above.   There are many examples such as this,  but anomalies like this aside, bird species counters press on.

World-famous Phoebe Snetzinger, who died on November 23, 1998, was the first person to list more than 8,000 species.   Her final total was 8,398 species.

The current world record is 10,000 species, which Peter Kaester set on Feb. 8, 2004.

Most bird species seen in one year?   6,852 species by Arjan Dwarshuis of the Netherlands, in 2016.

BarrytheBirder's personal bird species list?   417 species.   At 83 years of age, I don't expect this total to grow significantly.   But I'll keep looking.

You may notice that the number of bird species listed for me at the top of this blogsite is 425 species.   I just added up my bird species list in my Monroe & Sibley World Checklist of Birds and discovered my total is apparently 417 species.   Somewhere along the way I lost 8 species!   As mentioned above, I will keep looking however. 

Please comment if you wish.

BarrytheBirder