Species List

of the

Birds of County Cork

Below are links to the complete checklist of bird species recorded in county Cork, Ireland. Every effort has been made to make it as accurate as possible with available information. Sources used include Cork county and Irish bird reports and The Birds of County Cork (2022). If you see any errors or have additional information for this list please let us know so we can keep it as accurate and up to date as possible.

Invaluable information and comment on this list was provided by the current committee of the Cork Bird Report and Pat Smiddy. We would like to thank Kieran Fahy for permission to use an extract of Cork rarity records from his database of Irish rarities.

Where possible information up to at least the end of 2020 is given for each species . For rare species only those records accepted by the Irish Rare Birds Committee (IRBC) are included and currently those records are only available up to the end of 2020. Further information will be added to bring all species accounts up to date as soon as relevant data becomes available.

For much more detail on the birds of county Cork we cannot recommend highly enough The Birds of County Cork by Smiddy, Shorten and Heselden (2022). This is THE definitive book on the birds to be found in our county.

Species Distribution Maps based on the BirdWatch Ireland/BTO Bird Atlas 2007-11 can be seen by clicking on the ‘Summer Distribution/Winter Distribution‘ links in the species accounts. NOTE: All distribution maps are copyright of BTO/BirdWatch Ireland and cannot be used without permission. Species distribution information is given for very sporadic and rare breeding species in Ireland. We have included global species distribution notes to give an idea of where birds seen in the county fit into the global picture.

The taxonomy used follows that of Voous (1977) with subsequent changes adopted by the Irish Rare Bird Committee recommended by the Taxonomic Sub-Committee of the BOURC and the Taxonomic Advisory Committee of the AERC.

The names of the birds in Irish/Gaelic is printed in green. In recent decades, with increasing globalisation of communication on all things bird related it was felt that English names needed to be made more specific. For example we have just on bird call the Cormorant when in fact there are 23 species with the word Cormorant in their names. To be more specific and avoid confusion the bird is now known as Great Cormorant. For this reason we have included the new addition to the bird names in brackets. We felt it was a good idea to do the same for Irish/Gaelic bird names.

Up to the end of 2020 the county bird species total stands at 427.

Click on a species group below to get details.

Vultures, Eagles, Kites, Harrier's and Buzzards