List of bird species described in the 2000s

Summary statistics

Number of species described per year

Countries with high numbers of newly described species

• Brazil
• Colombia
• Peru
• Indonesia

  The birds, year-by-year

2000

• Foothill elaenia, Myiopagis olallai
• Caatinga antwren, Herpsilochmus sellowi
• Taiwan bush-warbler, Bradypterus alishanensis
• Scarlet-banded barbet or Wallace's scarlet-banded barbet, Capito wallacei
• Gunnison sage-grouse, Centrocercus minimus

• Gray-crested cacholote, Pseudoseisura unirufa, formerly included in the Caatinga cacholote

  2001

• Bukidnon woodcock, Scolopax bukidnonensis, from Mindanao and Luzon, Philippines.
• Mekong wagtail, Motacilla samveasnae.
• Chestnut-eared laughingthrush, Garrulax konkakinhensis.
• Chestnut-capped piha, Lipaugus weberi.
• Chapada flycatcher, Suiriri islerorum, from the cerrado region of Brazil and adjacent eastern Bolivia.
• Mishana tyrannulet, Zimmerius villarejoi, from Amazonian 'white sand forests' in northern Peru.
• Lulu's tody-tyrant. Poecilotriccus luluae, from the north-eastern Andes in Peru.

  2002

• Bald parrot, Pionopsitta aurantiocephala, from Brazil.
• Cryptic forest falcon, Micrastur mintoni, from Brazil. Whittaker 2003 WilsonBull. 114 p. 421,422, front. Note: This falcon was first reported in 2002; the name was not issued until the following year.
• Kimberley pipit Anthus pseudosimilis, Liversidge & Voelker 2002 BBOC 122 p. 93
• Little Sumba boobook, Ninox sumbaensis, from Indonesia.
• Madeira parakeet, Pyrrhura snethlageae, from the drainage of the Rio Madeira in Bolivia and Brazil, the scientific name of which honours Emilia Snethlage, who first recognized the distinctiveness of this form in 1914. It and the following are both part of the Pyrrhura picta complex.
• Wavy-breasted parakeet, Pyrrhura peruviana, from northern Peru.

• Lafresnaye's woodcreeper, Xiphorhynchus guttatoides, formerly included in the buff-throated woodcreeper.
• Elegant woodcreeper, X. elegans, formerly included in Spix's woodcreeper.
• Tschudi's woodcreeper, X. chunchotambo, formerly included in the ocellated woodcreeper.

  2003

• The Pernambuco pygmy owl Glaucidium mooreorum a Critically endangered species of Pygmy owl
• The Carrizal seedeater, Amaurospiza carrizalensis, from Venezuela.
• The Munchique wood-wren, Henicorhina negreti, is a member of the wren family. The bird is found on the Munchique Massif in the western Andes in the Chocó Endemic Bird Area, Colombia. The species' scientific name honours Alvaro José Negret, a Colombian conservationist. This is the first species to have been described as new to science on a website rather than in a traditional print-only journal.
• The Okarito brown kiwi, Apteryx rowi, is a member of the kiwi family. The species is part of the brown kiwi complex, and is morphologically very similar to other members of that complex. It is found in a restricted area of the Okarito forest on the west coast of New Zealand's South Island, and has a population of only 200 birds.

2004

• The Serendib scops-owl, Otus thilohoffmanni, is a small, rufous owl found in lowland rainforests in Sri Lanka. The new species was discovered in February 1995, when Deepal Warakagoda heard unfamiliar owl-like vocalisations, although it was not until January 2001, when Warakagoda saw the bird, that his suspicions were confirmed; other observers had suggested that an arboreal amphibian may have been the source of the noises. The name "Serendib" is an old name for Sri Lanka; the species' scientific name, however, honours conservationist Thilo W. Hoffmann.
• The Togian hawk-owl, Ninox burhani, is an owl. The bird is known only from three islands in the Togian group, an archipelago in the Gulf of Tomini off the coast of Sulawesi, Indonesia. The new species was discovered on 25 December 1999. The species' scientific name honours a local conservationist called Burhan.
• The Rubeho akalat, Sheppardia aurantiithorax, is a member of the Old World flycatcher family, known from the Eastern Arc of Tanzania. Akalats trapped in 1989 here were assumed to be an isolated population of Iringa akalat which occurs c. 150 km to the south, but further specimens collected in 2000 led to the description of the bird as a new species. The bird's English name relates to its type locality; the scientific name to the ochraceous colour on its throat and upper breast. The species is thought to be fairly common in montane forests within its small range.
• Acre antshrike, Thamnophilus divisorus, from Brazil
• The Calayan rail, Gallirallus calayanensis, is a member of the rail family found only on Calayan Island, one of the Babuyan Islands in the Philippines. It was discovered in 2004 as part of a faunal survey of the Babuyan islands. It is found in limestone forests on the island.
• Mees's nightjar, Caprimulgus meesi, is a member of the nightjar family. It is a representative of the large-tailed nightjar complex found on Flores and Sumba, Indonesia. Previously unrecognised as a separate taxon due to its lack of morphological distinctness, Sangster and Rozendaal described this new species on the basis of its vocalisations, which differ significantly from those of the large-tailed nightjar races resident on other islands in the Lesser Sundas. The species is named after Gerlof Mees, former curator of the Natural History Museum, Leiden.

  2005

• The sulphur-breasted parakeet, Aratinga pintoi, is found along the northern bank of the lower River Amazon in Pára state, Brazil. The species' scientific name honours Oliverio Pinto, a Brazilian ornithologist. This species was discovered as a result of a study of museum specimens of sun parakeet and related species; specimens of this species had been dismissed as immature parakeets of other species, or hybrids.
• The Upper Magdalena tapaculo, Scytalopus rodriguezi, is a restricted-range endemic presently known only from two localities on the eastern slope of the Cordillera Central at the head of the Magdalena valley, Colombia at 2000m or more above sea-level. Its range is believed to be no greater than 170 km², and its population around 2,200 pairs. It is found in humid forest with dense understorey. The species' scientific name honours José Vicente Rodriguez Mahecha, a Colombian conservationist. The existence of this species was first suspected in 1986, when a tape-recording of the bird's song was made, but political instability in the region prevented a return visit until 2002–2003, when the species' existence was confirmed.
• Stiles's tapaculo, Scytalopus stilesi, is the second member of the tapaculo family, Rhinocryptidae, to be newly described in 2005. It has been found at 21 sites in montane forest between 1,420 and 2,130 m altitude in the northern Cordillera Central of the Colombian Andes; although having a restricted range, within this limited area it is a common understorey bird. The species was originally observed in the 1990s, but when Niels Krabbe examined recordings of their songs, his suspicions arose that they were a new species — Stiles's tapaculo's song is considerably faster and lower-pitched than that of the closely related Ecuadorian tapaculo S. robbinsi. The species is named in honour of F. Gary Stiles, an ornithologist heavily involved in research on Neotropical birds during the 1980s & 1990s.
• The Iquitos gnatcatcher, Polioptila clementsi, is a gnatcatcher only known from the Allpahuayo-Mishana National Reserve, west of Iquitos, Peru. The species is a member of the Polioptila guianensis complex. It is named after James F. Clements.
• Naung Mung scimitar-babbler, Jabouilleia naungmungensis, from Myanmar
• Planalto tapaculo, Scytalopus pachecoi, formerly included in the mouse-colored tapaculo.

  2006

• The odedi, Cettia haddeni, is a species in the Old World warbler family, described from the Crown Prince Range on the island of Bougainville in the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea.
• The Camiguin hanging-parrot, Loriculus camiguinensis
• Hocking's conure, Aratinga hockingi,
• Bugun liocichla Liocichla bugunorum
• Scytalopus notorius Raposo, MA, Stopiglia, Loskot & Kirwan 2006 Zootaxa 1271 p. 44. A new name for the relatively well known mouse-coloured tapaculo, as the typically used name, Scytalopus speluncae, apparently belong to another species which had been considered undescribed.

  2007

• Sincorá antwren, Formicivora grantsaui Gonzaga, Carvalhaes & Buzzetti 2007 Zootaxa 1473 p. 25,28
• Gorgeted puffleg, Eriocnemis isabellae hummingbird, Trochilidae Cortes, A, Ortega, LA, Mazariegos-Hurtado & Weller 2007 Orn.Neotrop. 18 no.2 p. 161,162. The validity of this species was questioned briefly, but only until the strikingly plumaged female became known.
• Rufous twistwing, Cnipodectes superrufus: Lane, D., G. P. Servat, T. Valqui H., & F. R. Lambert. 2007. A distinctive new species of Tyrant flycatcher from south-eastern Peru. Auk. 124: 762–772.
• Antioquia brush-finch, Atlapetes blancae: Donegan, T.M. 2007. A new species of brush finch from the northern Central Andes of Colombia. Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club. 127: 255–268
• Diamantina tapaculo, Scytalopus diamantinensis: Bornschein, M. R., G. N. Maurício, R. Belmonte-Lopes, H. Mata & S. L. Bonatto. 2007. Diamantina tapaculo, a new Scytalopus endemic to the Chapada Diamantina, northeastern Brazil. Revista Brasileira de Ornitologia 15:151-174.
• Grey-crowned tyrannulet, Serpophaga griseicapilla: Straneck, R. 2007. Una nueva especie de Serpophaga. Revista FAVE - Ciencias Veterinarias 6 : 31–42.

• Solomon Islands frogmouth, Rigidipenna inexpectata - split from marbled frogmouth

  2008

• Nonggang babbler, Stachyris nonggangensis: Zhou Fang & Jiang Aiwu. A new species of babbler from the Sino-Vietnamese border region of China. Auk 125: 420–424.
• Yungas tyrannulet, Phyllomyias weedeni: Herzog, Kessler & Balderrama.. A new species of tyrannulet from Andean foothills in northwest Bolivia and adjacent Peru. Auk 125: 265–276.
• Olive-backed forest robin, Stiphrornis pyrrholaemus: Schmidt, Foster, Angehr, Durrant & Fleischer. A new species of African Forest Robin from Gabon. Zootaxa 1850: 27–42
• Monteiro's storm-petrel, Oceanodroma monteiroi: Monteiro's Storm-petrel Oceanodroma monteiroi: a new species from the Azoresby: MARK Bolton, Andrea L Smith, Elena Gomez-Diaz, Vicki L Friesen, Renata Medeiros, JOEL Bried, Jose L Roscales, Robert W Furness Ibis, Vol. 150, No. 4., pp. 717–727
• Vanikoro white-eye, Zosterops gibbsi: A new species of White-eye Zosterops and notes on other birds from Vanikoro, Solomon Islands by: GUY Dutson Ibis, Vol. 150, No. 4., pp. 698–706.
• Togian white-eye, Zosterops somadikartai: Mochamad Indrawan, Pamela C. Rasmussen, and Sunarto "A New White-Eye from the Togian Islands, Sulawesi, Indonesia" The Wilson Journal of Ornithology 120: 1-9
• Amazon red-fronted parakeet, Pyrrhura parvifrons: Arndt, T.. Anmerkungen zu einigen Pyrrhura-Formen mit der Beschreibung einer neuen Art und zweier neuer Unterarten. Papageien 8/2008.

  2009

• Bare-faced bulbul, Pycnonotus hualon: Woxvold, I. A., J. W. Duckworth, & R. J. Timmins. An unusual new bulbul from the limestone karst of Lao PDR. Forktail 25: 1-12.
• Rubeho warbler, Sceptomycter rubehoensis: Bowie, R.C.K., J. Fjeldså, & J. Kiure. Multilocus molecular DNA variation in Winifred's Warbler Scepomycter winifredae suggests cryptic speciation and the existence of a threatened species in the Rubeho–Ukaguru Mountains of Tanzania. Ibis 151: 709–719.
• South Hills crossbill, Loxia sinesciurus:
• Río Orinoco spinetail, Synallaxis beverlyae:
• Black-capped woodnymph, Thalurania nigricapilla:

  Described in this period, no longer thought to be good species

• Vanuatu petrel or Falla's Petrel, Pterodroma occulta.
• Beijing flycatcher Ficedula beijingnica, now considered to be the first-year male of the Chinese flycatcher Ficedula elisae