Birding: What is a songbird?

The living birds are classified into about 45 groups of related species called “orders.” Orders are broken down further into families.

A particular family will usually contain several genera (plural for genus) and numerous species. For example, one of the oldest orders, the Anseriformes, contains three families of waterfowl, the screamers of South America, the magpie geese of Australia, and the ducks, geese and swans found everywhere. Ducks geese and swans are all more closely related to one another than to any other birds, being the descendants of one common ancestor species. They are placed in one large family called Anatidae, containing about 50 genera and over 150 species. The other families in the order are smaller, with just three species of screamers and only one magpie goose still