Fauna of Australia group of endemic parrots, order Psittaciformes. Australian parrots comprise a sixth of the world's parrots, including many cockatoos and galahs. The kookaburra is the largest species of the kingfisher family, known for its call, which sounds uncannily like loud, echoing human laughter. The passerines of Australia, also known as songbirds or perching birds, include wrens, robins, the magpie group, thornbills, pardalotes, the huge honeyeater family, treecreepers, lyrebirds, birds of paradise and bowerbirds. The satin bowerbird has attracted the interest of evolutionary psychologists; it has a complex courtship ritual in which the male creates a bower filled with blue, shiny items
Birds of Boigu, Saibai and Dauan Islands (Torres Strait) is a smaller but higher granite island. From an Australian birder's perspective, local bird specialities include grey-headed goshawk, Gurney's eagle, rufous-bellied kookaburra, collared imperial-pigeon, orange-bellied fruit-dove, Papuan needletail, red-capped flowerpecker, streak-headed mannikin and singing starling. Access to these islands is not easy. Permission to visit is required from the island councils. The few birders who visit, do so on pre-organised trips by chartered yacht or, occasionally, on day-trips by chartered light aircraft. Saibai and Boigu have airstrips. The following list is annotated with initials indicating which species have been recorded on the three islands. Because these islands have not been