List of birds displaying homosexual behavior

Two New York Central Park Zoo's male chinstrap penguins, similar to those pictured, became internationally known when they coupled and later were given an egg that needed hatching and care, which they successfully did.

For these birds, there is documented evidence of homosexual or transgender behavior of one or more of the following kinds: sex, courtship, affection, pair bonding, or parenting, as noted in researcher and author Bruce Bagemihl's 1999 book Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity.

Bagemihl writes that the presence of same-sex sexual behavior was not 'officially' observed on a large scale until the 1990s due to possible observer bias caused by social attitudes towards LGBT people. Bagemihl devotes three chapters; Two Hundred Years at Looking at Homosexual Wildlife, Explaining (Away) Animal Homosexuality and Not For Breeding Only in his 1999 book Biological Exuberance to the "documentation of systematic prejudices" where he notes "the present ignorance of biology lies precisely in its single-minded attempt to find reproductive (or other) "explanations" for homosexuality, transgender, and non-procreative and alternative heterosexualities. Petter Bøckman, academic adviser for the Against Nature? exhibit stated "[M]any researchers have described homosexuality as something altogether different from sex. They must realise that animals can have sex with who they will, when they will and without consideration to a researcher's ethical principles". Homosexual behavior is found amongst social birds and mammals, particularly the sea mammals and the primates.

Animal sexual behavior takes many different forms, even within the same species and the motivations for and implications of their behaviors have yet to be fully understood. Bagemihl's research shows that homosexual behavior, not necessarily sex, has been documented in about 500 species as of 1999, ranging from primates to gut worms. Homosexuality in animals is seen as controversial by social conservatives because it asserts the naturalness of homosexuality in humans, while others counter that it has no implications and is nonsensical to equate animal behavior to morality. Animal preference and motivation is always inferred from behavior. Thus homosexual behavior has been given a number of terms over the years. The correct usage of the term homosexual is that an animal exhibits homosexual behavior, however this article conforms to the usage by modern research applying the term homosexuality to all sexual behavior (copulation, genital stimulation, mating games and sexual display behavior) between animals of the same sex.

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by expanding it with reliably sourced entries.

This list is part of a larger list of animals displaying homosexual behavior including mammals, insects, fish etc.

See also: List of mammals displaying homosexual behavior

Selected images

• Sunken Gardens Chilean flamingoes.jpg

  Chilean flamingoes eating, drinking, and preening in St. Petersburg, Florida; flamingos (as well as penguins and other species) sometimes form committed same-sex relationships that can involve sex, traveling and living together, and raising young together.

• 

  Two New York Central Park Zoo's male chinstrap penguins, similar to those pictured, became internationally known when they became a couple and were given an egg that needed hatching and care, which they successfully did.

• Coq de roche.jpg

  Male Guianan cock-of-the-rock, distributed in the mountainous regions of Guyana, eastern Colombia, southern Venezuela, Suriname, French Guiana and northern Amazonian Brazil, "delight in homosexuality" with almost 40 percent engaging in a form of homosexual activity and a small percentage never copulating with females.

• 

  The black swan, Cygnus atratus is a large waterbird which breeds mainly in the southeast and southwest regions of Australia. An estimated one-quarter of all black swans pairings are homosexual and they steal nests, or form temporary threesomes with females to obtain eggs, driving away the female after she lays the eggs.

Birds

• Acorn woodpecker
• Adelie penguin
• American flamingo
• American herring gull
• Anna's hummingbird
• Australian shelduck
• Aztec parakeet
• Bengalese finch (domestic)
• Bank swallow
• Barn owl
• Bearded vulture
• Bicolored antbird
• Black-billed magpie
• Black-crowned night heron
• Black-headed gull
• Black-rumped flameback
• Black stilt
• Black swan
• Black-winged stilt
• Blue-backed manakin
• Blue-bellied roller
• Blue crowned conure
• Blue tit
• Blue-winged teal
• Brown-headed cowbird
• Budgerigar (domestic)
• Buff-breasted sandpiper
• Calfbird
• California gull
• Canada goose
• Canary-winged parakeet
• Caspian tern
• Cattle egret
• Common chaffinch
• Chicken
• Chilean flamingo
• Chiloe wigeon
• Chinstrap penguin
• Cliff swallow
• Common gull
• Common murre
• Common shelduck
• Crane spp.
• Dusky moorhen
• Eastern bluebird
• Egyptian goose
• Elegant parrot
• Emu
• Eurasian oystercatcher
• European jay
• European shag

• Galah
• Gentoo penguin
• Golden bishop bird
• Golden plover
• Gray-breasted jay
• Gray-capped social weaver
• Grey heron
• Great cormorant
• Greater bird of paradise
• Greater flamingo
• Greater rhea
• Green cheek conure
• Green sandpiper
• Greenshank
• Greylag goose
• Griffon vulture
• Guianan cock-of-the-rock
• Guillemot
• Hammerhead (also known as hammerkop)
• Herring gull
• Hoary-headed grebe
• Hooded warbler
• House sparrow
• Humboldt penguin
• Ivory gull
• Jackdaw
• Kestrel
• King penguin
• Kittiwake
• Laughing gull
• Laysan albatross
• Lesser flamingo
• Lesser scaup duck
• Little blue heron
• Little egret
• Long-tailed hermit hummingbird
• Lory spp.
• Mallard
• Masked lovebird
• Mealy amazon parrot
• Mew gull
• Mexican jay
• Musk duck
• Mute swan
• Ocellated antbird
• Ocher-bellied flycatcher
• Orange bishop bird
• Orange-fronted parakeet
• Ornate lorikeet
• Ostrich

• Peach-faced lovebird
• Pied flycatcher
• Pied kingfisher
• Pigeon (domestic)
• Powerful owl
• Purple swamphen
• Raggiana's bird of paradise
• Raven
• Razorbill
• Red-backed shrike
• Red bishop bird
• Red-faced lovebird
• Common redshank
• Red-shouldered widowbird
• Regent bowerbird
• Ring-billed gull
• Ring dove
• Rock dove
• Roseate tern
• Rose-ringed parakeet
• Ruff
• Ruffed grouse
• Sage grouse
• San Blas jay
• Sand martin
• Satin bowerbird
• Scarlet ibis
• Scottish crossbill
• Seagull
• Senegal parrot
• Sharp-tailed sparrow
• Silver gull
• Silvery grebe
• Snow goose
• Steller's sea eagle
• Stitchbird
• Superb lyrebird
• Swallow-tailed manakin
• Tasmanian native hen
• Tree swallow
• Trumpeter swan
• Domesticated turkey
• Victoria's riflebird
• Wattled starling
• Western gull
• White-fronted amazon parrot
• White stork
• Wood duck
• Yellow-backed lorikeet
• Yellow-rumped cacique
• Zebra finch (domestic)

Notes

See also

• Against Nature?, an exhibit at the University of Oslo's Natural History Museum that took place until 19 August 2007.
• Anthropomorphism
• Behavioral ecology is the study of the ecological and evolutionary basis for animal behavior
• Biodiversity
• Bioethics
• Biology and sexual orientation
• Ethology is the scientific study of animal behavior, and a branch of zoology; cognitive ethology fuses cognitive science and classical ethology to observe animals under more-or-less natural conditions
• Evolutionary biology
• Homosexual behavior in animals#Birds
• Innate bisexuality
• Sexual selection

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