Birds Collections Search

Birds Collections Search
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Birds Collection Search
The Division of Birds, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, houses and maintains the third largest bird collection in the world with over 625,000 specimens. Our National Collection has representatives of about 80% of the approximately 9600 known species in the world's avifauna. The collection is comprised of specimens primarily prepared as study skins, skeletons, fluid preserved, eggs, nests, and mounted skins. We also hold nearly 4000 primary type specimens.
Search the Bird Collections
Keyword searches on summary fields can be run from the Keywords Search tab. Searches can be run against specific fields from the Search by Field tab. If you don't know what to search for, try one of the three sample searches in the Quick Browse list below.
Please note that only 85% of our total holdings have complete records in the public specimen database. Finches, sparrows, doves, and old-world flycatchers are some examples of groups that do not have a complete set of records in the database. It is also important to note that most collections acquired in the last 20-30 years are not searchable on the public database. In addition, we have over 40,000 tissue samples, but only a small percentage of those are searchable through the public database. For more information about specimen or tissue holdings, please contact Chris Milensky (milenskyc[at]si.edu)
Help
See the Help tab to learn more about searching and then exploring your returned results (sorting, exporting, etc.).
Quick Browse Searches
Selected specimens with images
4004773 4009300 4015150 4023876 4065601 4138970 4230140 4272611 4346273 4383533 4402451
Selected specimens of extinct North American birds
4006309 4006909 4009165 4015766 4022681 4022682 4022692 4038374 4041839 4055344 4055345 4057108 4096821 4112756 4114000 4127866 4138240 4138307 4139039 4139904 4141268 4141981 4145878 4147150 4157183 4160912 4165094 4236767 4236770 4236775 4236801 4236803 4236805 4236814 4236815 4237066 4264779 4265113 4354076
Selected specimens collected by Audubon, Darwin, Roosevelt, and Wallace
4010995 4010999 4011005 4011010 4012550 4012551 4021332 4022007 4138345 4138686 4185271 4187564 4188280 4293517 4331012 4354294 4376467 4376468 4376474 4376516 4376555
Use the
By Field
search to find specimen data that match values in specific database fields.
Enter a value or choose one from the dropdown lists.
Click the
button to initiate a search.
Clear
resets all fields.
Some lists are linked, so for example, choosing a
Country
narrows the choices for
Province/State/Territory
, and
District/County
. Dropdown choices also
narrow as you type, for example, typing
anat
in the
Family
field might narrow the choice to
Anatidae
Check
Only Records with Images
if you want to restrict the search to records with multimedia content.
You can force an exact search by surrounding your search text in double-quotes. Exact means exact,
the search is case-sensitive and must match the value of the entire field. An exact search will also
take much longer to complete.
You will receive a warning when you enter invalid information in the text fields. For example,
Catalog Numbers
are composed strictly of letters and numbers; other characters raise a warning.
Enter your keywords separated by spaces and click
. Records that match your search
terms will be returned.
You can join terms with OR to match any, e.g.
eritrea OR djibouti
You can include the terms
image(s)
or
type(s)
to find records that have images or that are type specimens.
To search for Catalog Numbers, replace spaces with dashes, e.g. instead of
ABC 12345
, use
ABC-12345
. Do not include any other terms.
Note that searching for common (vernacular) names may not yield the expected results. Associating common names with specimen records is a work in progress.
Keyword search example:
icterus costa rica type
The results of your searches can be displayed in
Grid
(a sortable, customizable table)

or
Gallery View
(best for reviewing images). Use the Switch button
to cycle between these views.
You can choose whether to display 5, 10, 20, 50, or 100 records at a time.
In
Grid View
You can choose the columns to display from any column's dropdown menu (mouse into
a column header and click the dropdown icon). Under
Columns
, click the name
to display or hide the field (you do not need to click the checkbox specifically).
You can drag a column header to change its order of appearance in the grid.
You can also drag the edge of a column to make it wider or narrower.
Click in the
expansion
column to view the full record.
In
Gallery View
Click the image to view the full record.
See
Exporting Results
for information on downloading results to, for example,
Excel.
Open the full collection record by clicking the expansion button
in
Grid View

or anywhere within the image frame in
Gallery View
. Inverse expansion buttons
indicate records with
multimedia
(typically, images).
In the Record window, metadata for the multimedia content is available when you mouseover the thumbnail.
Clicking the thumbnail opens the content in your browser or other appropriate application.
Record windows may be resized or moved within the browser window.
You may have up to ten Record windows open at any one time.
Sort results in
Grid View
by clicking the column header (or by choosing Sort from
the column's dropdown menu).
Sort on multiple columns
by consecutively sorting columns in reverse order.
For example, to view results sorted by Country and Province/State, first sort by
Province/State and then sort again by Country.
For any column you can choose to sort in Ascending or Descending order.
Export all or selected results by clicking the
Export Results as CSV
button in the
bottom toolbar in
Grid
or
Gallery View
Select individual records for Export by checking the export selection box
(along the left edge of the
Grid View
grid).
Clear all selections with the
Clear Selections
button in the bottom toolbar.
Results are exported as comma-separated-values, one record per line, which can be saved
to disk or opened directly with applications such as Microsoft Excel.
Here are a few search tips:
Query results are limited to 5000 records. Avoid very general queries that
return very large numbers of records, e.g. searching for
passeriformes
You can choose which columns to display in the Grid View of your search results.
Move your pointer to any column header and click on the dropdown arrow. Scroll
to
Columns
and then check or uncheck column names to show or hide those
columns in the grid.
To create a link to specific records at NMNH
provide a querystring for:
birds/?
QUERYSTRING
where QUERYSTRING is (use a plus-sign to separate case-insensitive terms):
One or more CATALOG NUMBERS, e.g.
birds/?
nb=b-42071+90475+354010
birds/?
nb=b48220
The NAME of a specimen, e.g.:
birds/?
qn=coua
birds/?
qn=ficedula+basilanica+samarensis
The NAME of a TYPE specimen, e.g.:
birds/?
qt=otus+asio+maxwelliae
birds/?
qt=sialia+mexicana
A GENERAL query, searching on any combination of: NAME (qn), FAMILY (fm), TYPE STATUS (ts),
COLLECTOR (cr), COLLECTION (cn), EXPEDITION NAME (ex), GENETIC SAMPLE (gs), or WITH IMAGES
ONLY (io), e.g.:
birds/?
q=ts+type+ex+peruvian+1914-1915+io+1
(Specimens with the type status
Type
collected on a
Peruvian
expedition
from
1914-1915
, with images)
birds/?
q=fm+vireonidae+cr+munro
(Specimens of
Vireonidae
collected by Munro)
birds/?
q=gs+1+fm+pycnonotidae
Genetic Samples
from specimens in the family
Pycnonotidae
To open the Collections Search to a specific search tab, e.g.
birds/?
ti=1
(Keywords Search)
Tabs are numbered left to right, beginning with zero.
It is best to
use only letters, numbers, pluses (+), dashes (-), and commas in your querystrings
and to avoid other characters.
Please use the Feedback page to report problems you find with the data, or with using
these search pages.