We've added a few new Birdorable birds this week, the first one being this Eurasian Tree Sparrow. In eastern Asia this cute little bird is widespread in towns and cities, but in Europe, where the House Sparrow is occupying the cities, it is a bird of wooded areas and open countryside. It is not an endangered bird globally, but it is declining in western Europe due to change in farming practices and use of herbicides. There is also a small population of about 15,000 birds in the United States, around St. Louis and parts of Illinois and Iowa. These birds, believe it or not, are descendants of 12 birds taken over from Germany that were released in 1870 in an attempt to enhance the North American avifauna. The birds were set free in Lafayette Park in St. Louis by a local bird dealer. Other European birds were also released, including Goldfinches and Chaffinches, but only the Eurasian Tree Sparrow successfully established a breeding population. If you're ever in St. Louis and want to find a Eurasian Tree Sparrow you can find some good instructions here.

Here are ten fun facts about the Snowy Owl. Don't forget to check out our customizable Snowy Owl t-shirts and gifts and other cute Birdorable owls.

1. Snowy Owls are diurnal, which means that unlike most other owls they are active and hunt during the day and night.
2. The diet of Snowy Owls consists mainly of lemmings. They are known to sit and wait for their prey and spend most of their time perched still and silent on prominent lookouts.
3. Lemming populations are cyclic and in years when lemming populations are down Snowy Owls often leave the arctic regions and fly south in search of food. Because of this, about once every four years Snowy Owls are found as far south as the northern and central United States.
4. An adult Snowy Owl can eat three to five lemmings per day, or up to 1,600 per year.
5. The feathers of Snowy Owls have no pigment, leaving more space for air which helps them to keep warmer because air is such a good insulator.
6. Their legs and toes are heavily feathered to protect them from the harsh weather in cold arctic regions.
7. Snowy Owls often hang out at airports, perhaps because the wide open spaces remind them of the tundra.
8. Although Snowy Owls have few predators, they still have to be watchful of arctic foxes, wolves and other animals during the nesting season. Males defend the nest by standing guard nearby while the female incubates the eggs and broods the young. When a predator approaches both parents will dive-bomb (even wolves!) and try to distract them away from the nest.
9. The Snowy Owl is also known as the Arctic Owl or Great White Owl. A group of owls has many different names, including a bazaar, glaring, parliament, stooping and a wisdom of owls.
10. The breeding range of the Snowy Owl is circumpolar, ranging across the northern regions of Greenland, Scandinavia, Russia, Alaskia and Canada.

We've added another parrot to our Birdorable family of cute birds. This time it's the Yellow-bibbed Lorikeet, a beautifully colored parrot from Southeast Asia where it lives in subtropical and tropical lowland forests.

Photo by Yee Chieng

If you like our cute Yellow-bibbed Lory don't forget to check out our other parrots and parakeets.

This week we've added the Black-headed Parrot to Birdorable. This beautiful short-tailed parrot can be found in South American forests north of the Amazon River and west of the Ucayali River. Together with the White-bellied Parrot, it is one of two birds in the caiques family. These birds are very social and can be found in flocks up to 30 individuals. Luckily the Black-headed Parrots is not endangered and is fairly common across its range.

This is just one of many Birdorable parrots. Check out our meet page to see them all.

This Earth Day we've added the 175th species to Birdorable: the Egyptian Vulture. This striking black-and-white bird with yellow face lives in southern Europe, northern Africa and southern Asia. Unfortunately, its numbers are in decline over large parts of its range.

In Europe and most of the Middle East it is only half as plentiful as it was about twenty years ago, and the populations in India and southwestern Africa have collapsed almost entirely. In Egypt this bird is also known as the Pharaoh's Chicken because of its relationship with Ancient Egypt's oldest deity, Nekhbet. They referred to the bird as the Mother of Mothers and it was depicted on the front of the pharaoh's crown.

The nurturing behavior of these vultures while rearing their young led to a view of them as model parents. We saw these two Egyptian Vultures from a boat on the Chambal River in Rajasthan, India:

If you like our Egyptian Vulture you may also like our other Birds of Prey. Here are two sample products from our store:

The Chestnut-sided Warbler is a small songbird with a yellow forehead, white breast and chestnut streaks along its sides. They bread in eastern North America and winter in Central America. Each winter they return to the same area where they'll forage with the same flock of resident tropical warblers. What a great way to catch up with old friends! So many birds are decreasing in number these days due to habitat destruction, but this little fellow is actually doing very well. It increased tremendously in the late 19th century as second growth forests became more common.

This is our cute Birdorable version of the Chestnut-sided Warbler, bringing the total number of Birdorable warblers to four. We live in Northern Illinois and most warblers are expected to arrive here through May. Warblers are notoriously difficult to identify because there are so many that look so much alike, and they don't stay still for too long. What's your favorite warbler species?

The Burrowing Owl is the second owl that we've added to Birdorable this week. These little cuties are about the size of an American Robin. They like to hang out underground in burrows that were dug out by small mammals like prairie dogs and ground squirrels. Burrowing Owls appear to be diurnal as you can often see them foraging during the day, but they actually hunt all day and night long, although they tend to avoid the mid-day heat. In the United States Burrowing Owls are distributed from the Mississippi west to the Pacific and you can also find them in Florida and the Carribean Islands. They live in dry open areas with low vegetation.

Photo by BGale

Source: WikipediaThe Barn Owl is one of the most widely distributed birds in the world. You can find it on all continents; almost anywhere except for polar and desert regions. There are about 46 different subspecies of Barn Owl in the world. The North American one is the largest, weighing more than twice as much as the smallest race from the Galapagos Islands. Barn Owls are experts in hunting for small ground mammels, like mice, rats and gophers. And they need to catch a lot of foot! Barn Owls are able to consume twice as much food as other owls in comparison to their weight. A young Barn Owl can eat 25.000 mice a year!

Photo by nicebiscuit

Photo by Bryan Olesen

The Barn Owl is our 174th Birdorable bird and the answer to our last Spot the Birdorable. If you like our Birdorable Barn Owl you may also like our other birds of prey.

One of the latest additions to Birdorable is the Yellow-headed Blackbird. This striking 8.5-inch blackbird is unmistakable with its yellow head and breast. You can find it across North America and especially in freshwater cattail marshes west of the Great Lakes. Each spring, enormous flocks of yellowheads migrate from Mexico and the southern United States northward to their nesting territories in western North America. You'll often see them hanging out with Red-winged Blackbirds, but the yellowheads are larger and dominant over the redwings. Here's a nice picture of both species flocking together:

Photo by hcgregory

The Yellow-headed Blackbird is a handsome bird, but it isn't afraid of getting its beautiful plumage dirty. Check out these pictures by Rick Wright in Arizona of yellowheads hanging out with cows in the mud.

This and next photo by Rick Wright

This is our cute Birdorable version of the Yellow-headed Blackbird. For more than 170 other Birdorable birds see the Meet the Birds page.

The Common Kingfisher has been crowned Germany's Bird of the Year 2009 by NABU, the German BirdLife organization. NABU has been nominating the 'Bird of the Year' since 1971 to focus people's attention to a particular species and its habitat. The first bird was the Peregrine Falcon, which, thanks to several conservation projects, is no longer on the list of threatened birds in Germany. The Common Kingfisher itself isn't endangered in Germany — there are between 5,600 and 8,000 breeding pairs in Germany — but conservationists are hoping the added attention may results in increased protection for its dwindling habitat, which is rivers. Kingfishers need clear water and natural river banks to nest.

Photo by Sergey Yeliseev

Photo by xnir