Birds of the National Parks
Meet the 38 birds we've written up, like the American dipper, and the national parks where you'll find them.
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Bird American dipper
Cinclus mexicanus
A stream-gray songbird that walks along the bottom of cold mountain creeks to hunt, the only songbird in North America that does.
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Bird American white pelican
Pelecanus erythrorhynchos
A huge white bird with an orange throat pouch that fishes in groups and nests on tiny islands in Yellowstone Lake and other high-country waters.
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Bird Bald eagle
Haliaeetus leucocephalus
The white-headed fish hawk that is the national bird of the United States, common along the lakes of Voyageurs and the coasts of Olympic and Katmai.
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Bird Black-billed magpie
Pica hudsonia
A black-and-white corvid with a tail as long as its body, common on fences and roadsides across the northern Rockies and Great Plains.
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Bird Burrowing owl
Athene cunicularia
A small owl that nests underground in old prairie-dog burrows and hunts in daylight across Western grasslands, unlike most owls.
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Bird Cactus wren
Campylorhynchus brunneicapillus
The largest wren in the U.S., which jams a football-shaped nest deep inside a cholla cactus's own thorns for protection.
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Bird California condor
Gymnogyps californianus
The biggest flying bird in North America, a bare-headed scavenger you can watch ride the wind over the cliffs at Grand Canyon and Zion.
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Bird Canada jay
Perisoreus canadensis
A fearless, fluffy gray bird that glues thousands of food scraps into tree bark with its own sticky spit and remembers nearly all of them through winter.
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Bird Canyon wren
Catherpes mexicanus
A small, rusty-brown songbird of canyon cliffs at Black Canyon, Arches, and Canyonlands, far more often heard than seen.
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Bird Clark's nutcracker
Nucifraga columbiana
A pale-gray, black-winged cousin of the crow that hides tens of thousands of pine seeds each fall and remembers where to find them again.
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Bird Common loon
Gavia immer
The black-and-white diving bird whose call carries across Glacier's lakes; one in five of Montana's nesting loons is inside this park.
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Bird Common raven
Corvus corax
A big, glossy-black problem-solver that rolls and tumbles in the wind over the cliffs of Grand Canyon, Arches, and Canyonlands.
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Bird Dusky grouse
Dendragapus obscurus
A large, slow forest grouse of Black Canyon's sagebrush flats and conifer slopes, easier to find in spring.
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Bird Gambel's quail
Callipepla gambelii
A ground-loving desert quail with a forward-curling black topknot that runs from danger in a dusty covey instead of flying.
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Bird Golden eagle
Aquila chrysaetos
A dark brown eagle with golden neck feathers that hunts rabbits and hares across open country, nesting on cliffs in Denali, Death Valley, and Great Basin.
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Bird Great horned owl
Bubo virginianus
A big night hunter with feathery "horns" and a deep hoot, found from the saguaro desert to the Everglades, hunting after dark on silent wings.
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Bird Greater roadrunner
Geococcyx californianus
A long-legged desert bird that would rather run than fly, chasing down lizards and snakes across the ground at Saguaro, Big Bend, and White Sands.
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Bird Greater sage-grouse
Centrocercus urophasianus
North America's largest grouse, dependent on sagebrush, known for the popping, booming display males perform on spring dancing grounds.
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Bird Harlequin duck
Histrionicus histrionicus
A slate-blue and chestnut sea duck that breeds by diving and bracing in fast mountain whitewater instead of calm water.
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Bird Killdeer
Charadrius vociferus
A shorebird that lives nowhere near a shore. At Badlands we never saw one. We heard it call its own name across the campground.
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Bird Marbled murrelet
Brachyramphus marmoratus
A small seabird that nests far inland on a mossy old-growth limb, with no nest built around the egg, a nest nobody found until 1974.
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Bird Mountain bluebird
Sialia currucoides
A sky-blue thrush of high, open country, the only bluebird seen regularly above 5,000 feet, nesting in lava-rock crevices at Craters of the Moon.
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Bird Northern spotted owl
Strix occidentalis caurina
A nocturnal old-growth owl whose numbers keep falling even in protected forest, as a bigger relative from the East moves into its territory.
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Bird Osprey
Pandion haliaetus
A fish-hunting hawk that dives feet-first into open water and flies off with its catch turned head-forward like a torpedo.
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Bird Peregrine falcon
Falco peregrinus
The fastest animal alive, a crow-sized falcon that folds its wings and stoops on other birds in midair, and a species that nearly vanished before recovering.
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Bird Pinyon jay
Gymnorhinus cyanocephalus
A dusty-blue crow relative that travels Mesa Verde and Black Canyon in loud flocks, burying pine seeds it will dig up again later.
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Bird Red-tailed hawk
Buteo jamaicensis
The hawk most often recorded in Yellowstone. We watched a hawk take a pika near the Roosevelt cabins and could not tell you which hawk it was.
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Bird Rufous hummingbird
Selasphorus rufus
A copper-orange hummingbird that flies farther, relative to its size, than almost any other bird on Earth, from Mexico to Alaska and back every year.
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Bird Sandhill crane
Antigone canadensis
A tall gray wading bird with a red forehead and a bugling call, gathering by the thousands near Great Sand Dunes and standing year-round in the Everglades.
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Bird Sharp-tailed grouse
Tympanuchus phasianellus
A prairie grouse that dances on open ground at dawn, stamping its feet and inflating purple air sacs on its neck to attract a mate.
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Bird Sooty grouse
Dendragapus fuliginosus
A large, dark forest grouse whose male hoots from bare yellow neck patches in spring, then walks itself uphill each fall to spend winter eating conifer needles.
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Bird Steller's jay
Cyanocitta stelleri
A deep-blue mountain jay with a black crest and a loud voice, the campground bird that will eye your sandwich at Yosemite, Sequoia, and Crater Lake.
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Bird Trumpeter swan
Cygnus buccinator
North America's largest waterfowl, a white swan with a trumpeting call, found on rivers and lakes from Yellowstone to the Dakota prairies.
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Bird Turkey vulture
Cathartes aura
A large, dark soaring bird with a bare red head, circling on thermals over open country, using one of the sharpest noses of any bird.
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Bird Varied thrush
Ixoreus naevius
A ringing single whistle from deep, shaded old-growth forest, and a bird so well hidden most visitors only ever hear it.
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Bird Western meadowlark
Sturnella neglecta
A grassland songbird with a yellow throat and a black V on its chest, the state bird of Montana, Wyoming, and North Dakota.
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Bird White-tailed ptarmigan
Lagopus leucura
A small alpine grouse that turns pure white in winter and nearly vanishes against rock and snow above treeline in the Rockies.
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Bird Wild turkey
Meleagris gallopavo
A forest bird in a park with almost no forest. Badlands turkeys hold to the wooded draws, because a turkey needs a tree to sleep in.