Welcome to Ornithia!
Do you love animals, nature, science, and discovery? Or perhaps you have an interest in fantasy worlds, psychedelics, and the space-time continuum. Regardless of what brought you here, welcome friend!
Cosmic Birds of Ornithia is an NFT collection of 5000 birds, launching on the 
Solana blockchain and making an impact on wildlife in the real world.
At its core, Cosmic Birds of Ornithia is a long-term, world-building sci-fi project, in which our community members (i.e. NFT holders) collectively create the world of Ornithia. Just like on Planet Earth, the opportunities to study nature and make new discoveries are endless…
Cosmic Bird NFTs
When you mint a Cosmic Bird NFT, you not only own the artwork, you are considered the discoverer of the species.
With this discovery comes the rare opportunity to give your bird species its scientific name — the lifelong dream of every naturalist! Even if the NFT is later sold on the secondary market, the scientific name of the species will forever be that of the original discoverer (i.e. first minter).
Each Cosmic Bird NFT comes with two high quality image files:
- A square image of the bird species set against a sky background. This image has no text and can be used as a profile picture (PFP).
- A Species Record card containing the embedded square image, along with the species’ name and all data that is currently known about it.
Wondering what Arthropets and Entheogens are? Read about the Lore of Ornithia.
Remember how fun it was to go on nature walks as a kid? If you ever collected rocks and seeds, or observed plants, bugs, and other animals in nature, you are a field researcher / scientist in the making! As a holder of a Cosmic Bird NFT, you instantly become a part of our scientific community. You do not need to be a scientist IRL, just a curious person with an imagination :)
With an entire solar system to explore, we are excited to embark on a series of deep space expeditions together. Not only do we need to discover and name thousands of cosmic bird species during our first expedition (i.e. project launch), we also need to collect all kinds of data on this spectacular new world.
As a community member / NFT holder, you have the unique opportunity to create the world of Ornithia with us. As one of our “researchers”, you can contribute in any (or all) of the following scientific disciplines:
Inspiration
Cosmic Bird NFTs are an homage to the longstanding naturalist tradition of discovering, naming, and cataloging new species for science. The art is inspired by scientific illustrations of birds seen in field guides.
Excerpt from a field guide: Birds of Peru, by Schulenberg et al., 2010, Princeton University Press
Species record card from 1964, California Academy of Sciences
Scale drawing of a Velociraptor: excerpted from Prehistoric Life, by Palmer, et. al. 2012, DK Publishing
Cosmic Bird NFTs are also meant to recapture the 80s/90s nostalgia and fun of collecting Wildlife Fact Files and other collectibles like pogs and Pokémon trading cards. Remember getting these in the mail?
Rarity
A bioluminescent heron, one of the rarest morphs in the collection
Just like on Earth, some cosmic bird species are quite common, while others are seen only once in a lifetime (if ever!) Based on a unique combination of bird family, colors, and traits, Cosmic Bird NFTs fall into one of six categories:
- Common 78%
- Fairly common 16.4%
- Uncommon 4.5%
- Rare 0.6%
- Very rare 0.3%
- Presumed extinct 0.2%