This gallery showcases images of birds taken in the Western Palearctic, but excluding images of birds in Great Britain which are shown in a separate gallery. The Palearctic is one of the eight biogeographic realms dividing the Earth's surface. Because of its size, the Palaearctic is often divided for convenience into two, with Europe, North Africa, northern and central parts of the Arabian Peninsula, and part of temperate Asia, roughly to the Ural Mountains forming the western zone. Almost 900 species of birds have so far been recorded in the Western Palearctic. This total includes some 600 breeding species, while most of the remainder are vagrants and therefore only extremely rare visitors. I have so far managed to photograph a total of about 280 species of birds in the region and am starting to have to travel further afield to photograph more.