1850 in birding and ornithology

• Deutsche Ornithologen-Gesellschaft founded
• Charles Lucien Bonaparte publishes Conspectus Generum Avium (Leyden) ; Revue critique de l'ornithologie Européenne (Brussels) and Monographie des loxiens (crossbills, grosbeaks, and allied species) (Leyden)
• Edward Smith-Stanley obtains a Grey Trembler specimen from the bird collector Jules Verreaux
• John Gould commences The Birds of Asia (1850–83)
• Francis Orpen Morris begins A Natural History of British Birds (1850-1857)
• Extinction of the Spectacled Cormorant
• The Berlin Museum has a total of 13,760 bird specimens.