Clutches vary considerably in size: some larger passerines of Australia such as lyrebirds and scrub-robins lay only a single egg, most smaller passerines in warmer climates lay between two and five, whilst in the higher latitudes of the northern hemisphere hole-nesting species like tits can lay up to a dozen and other species around five or six.

Dicaeum is a genus of birds in the flowerpecker family, a group of passerines tropical southern Asia and Australasia from India east to the Philippines and south to Australia.

In addition, it is now becoming increasingly clear that " near passerines " and " higher landbirds " are not synonymous, but that the former is more probably a subclade of the latter, and that the latter also includes groups like Falconiformes

Both the Rock Wren and the Rifleman also show sexual dimorphism in size, unusually for passerines it is the female that is larger than the male.

Originally, these birds were placed in the thrushes, and they have also been placed with the Old World warblers and the babblers, but recent DNA studies indicate these birds are actually primitive passerines most closely related to the rockfowl ( Picatharthidae ), a family in which they are sometimes placed.

They will also catch flying passerines, which they typically target while the small birds are exhausted from migration and swallow them immediately.

It also has wintering passerines, including the Painted Bunting.

Unlike many other passerines, but like all cordon-bleu species, female Red-cheeked Cordon-bleus sing ; they also help to defend a small area around their nest site.

Zone-tails also eat various young birds, having been observed preying on nestlings and fledgings of species as varied as herons and passerines.

It will also take prey and some fruit from vegetation by gleaning and jumping for it or ripping it off in mid-hover, and occasionally dives for fish or tadpoles in shallow water, making it one of the few fishing passerines.

Sometimes known as perching birds or, less accurately, as songbirds, the passerines form one of the most diverse terrestrial vertebrate orders: with over 5, 000 identified species, it has roughly twice as many species as the largest of the mammal orders, the Rodentia.

Larks are the only passerines that lose all their feathers in their first moult ( in all species whose first moult is known ).

Subsequent attempts to train homing behaviour into swallows and other passerines had difficulty establishing a statistically significant success rate, although the birds have been known to trap themselves repeatedly in order to obtain bait from traps.

Early molecular research in the late 1980s and early 1990s revealed that the fantails belong to a large group of mainly Australasian birds known as the Corvida parvorder comprising many tropical and Australian passerines.

It is the best known of the extremely few ( five or so ) flightless passerines known to science ( Millener, 1989 ), all of which were inhabitants of islands and are now extinct.

This enables passerines to sleep while perching without falling off.

Certain species of passerines have stiff tail feathers, which help the birds balance themselves when perching upon vertical surfaces.

Like other perching birds ( passerines ), it is affected by external and internal parasites and is vulnerable to predation by cats and birds of prey.

This bird is a brood parasite: it lays its eggs in the nests of other small passerines ( perching birds ), particularly those that build cup-like nests.

The main mode of WNV transmission is via various species of mosquitoes which are the prime vector, with birds being the most commonly infected animal and serving as the prime reservoir host-especially passerines which are of the largest order ( Passeriformes ) of birds.

The names " passerines " and " Passeriformes " are derived from Passer domesticus, the scientific name of the eponymous species ( the House Sparrow ) and ultimately from the Latin term passer for Passer sparrows and similar small birds.

The Passeriformes apparently evolved out of a fairly close-knit clade of " near passerines " which contains such birds as the Piciformes and Coraciiformes.

In agreement with the split of Falconiformes and Accipitriformes, comparative genome analysis published in 2008 suggested that falcons are more closely related to the parrots and passerines than to other birds including the Accipitridae, so that the traditional Falconiformes are paraphyletic even if the Cathartidae are excluded ..

Indeed, a 2011 analysis of transposable element insertions shared between the genomes of falcons, passerines, and parrots, but not present in the genomes of other birds, confirmed that falcons are a sister group of the combined parrot / passerine group, together forming the clade Eufalconimorphae.

The Eurasian Wren is among the smallest birds in its range, while the smaller species from the Americas are among the smallest passerines in that part of the world.

Near passerine or higher land-bird assemblage are terms often given to arboreal birds or those most often believed to be related to the true passerines ( order Passeriformes ) due to ecological similarities ; the group corresponds to some extent with the Anomalogonatae of Garrod

All near passerines are land birds.

With nearly 450 species identified to date, they are the most diverse order of birds after the passerines.

Once believed to be related to cranes, they have been placed by one recent study near the falcons, parrots and passerines, as well as the extinct terror birds.

They will prey on waterfowl, passerines and migrating birds.

Tropical species are sometimes found in mixed-species foraging flocks, where various types of passerines and other smallish birds are found feeding in proximity.

These birds seem to be remnants of an early expansion of passerines to New Zealand.

Although some large birds such as swans learn migration routes from their parents, in most small species, such as passerines, the route is genetically programmed, and young birds can innately navigate to their wintering area.

Pigeons and doves constitute the bird clade Columbidae that include some 310 species of near passerines.

Preferred avian prey include passerines of open country ( i. e. sparrows, larks, pipits ), small shorebirds and the young of waterfowl and galliforms.

Also, several families of passerines are limited to the Afrotropics ; These include rock-jumpers ( Chaetopidae ) and rockfowl ( Picathartidae ).

Among birds, these include, for example, herons, hawks, woodpeckers, owls and most passerines.

Rare American passerines include Red-eyed Vireo and Blackpoll Warbler.

Many species will immediately seem familiar to visitors from the northern hemisphere-Australian wrens look and act much like northern hemisphere wrens and Australian robins seem to be close relatives of the northern hemisphere robins, but in fact the majority of Australian passerines are descended from the ancestors of the crow family, and the close resemblance is misleading: the cause is not genetic relatedness but convergent evolution.

The New Zealand wrens, Acanthisittidae, are a family of tiny passerines endemic to New Zealand.

Like all New Zealand passerines the New Zealand wrens are sedentary, and are not thought to undertake any migrations.

Originally, the bird was described as a distinct genus, Traversia, in honor of naturalist and curio dealer Henry H. Travers who procured many specimens from Lyall, but is currently considered to be part of the Xenicus wrens, which are not wrens at all, but a similar-looking New Zealand lineage of primitive passerines, better referred to as acanthisittidae.

DNA studies seem to indicate that the wrens are the most ancient of all passerines, splitting from the ancestral passerine stock at the time New Zealand become an isolated land mass.