Birds of Alabama

Alabama runs from the last ridges of the Appalachians in the northeast down to the Gulf, and the birds shift as you go. The Tennessee River valley across the north is winter crane country. The middle mixes pine, hardwood bottomland and open pasture where meadowlarks whistle from the fence posts. The coast is only two counties wide, but every April birders from all over the country go there, because songbirds that have flown across the Gulf all night drop into the first live oaks they see.

For a beginner none of that matters yet. The birds in an Alabama yard are the same from Huntsville to Mobile: cardinal, Carolina Wren, mockingbird, Blue Jay, titmouse, chickadee, Mourning Dove, and a flicker on the lawn.

The Alabama album

These are the 100 birds people report most often in Alabama, ranked by how frequently they turn up. The common and uncommon ones are shown; the rare and legendary cards stay face down until you catch them in the game.

Backyard birds you will hear first

The Northern Cardinal opens the year. By late January a male is whistling cheer, cheer, cheer from the top of a crepe myrtle, and it keeps at it until August. The Carolina Wren is the loud one for its size: teakettle, teakettle, teakettle from under the porch, in every month of the year.

The Northern Mockingbird runs through its borrowed phrases from the highest perch it can find, and in spring an unpaired male will do it under a streetlight at midnight. The Tufted Titmouse whistles peter, peter, peter, and the Red-bellied Woodpecker rolls out a churring kwirr from the oaks.

Then there is the state bird. Look for the Northern Flicker on the ground, not the trunk: it is the one woodpecker that regularly feeds on lawns, breaking into ant nests. The call is a long, even, laughing series, and in March the males drum on gutters and chimney caps because metal is louder than wood.

The regions, by ear

The Appalachian foothills and the Tennessee Valley

The northeast has the state's only real ridges, and its forests sound like the mountains farther north: Wood Thrush at dusk, Ovenbird shouting teacher, teacher from the leaf litter, the wild laugh of the Pileated Woodpecker. Along the Tennessee River, Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge was set aside in 1938 for wintering waterfowl, and each winter thousands of Sandhill Cranes bugle over its fields, with a few endangered Whooping Cranes among them since 2004.

The Black Belt

A band of open country across the middle of the state. This is fence-post listening: Eastern Meadowlark whistling from a post and Northern Bobwhite calling its own name from the field edge.

The Piney Woods and the Wiregrass

Southern Alabama is longleaf and loblolly pine. The Pine Warbler trills from the canopy in nearly every month, Brown-headed Nuthatches squeak like rubber ducks in the crowns, and after dark, from April on, the Chuck-will's-widow repeats its name from the forest edge.

The Gulf Coast

Brown Pelicans and Laughing Gulls are the sound of the beach, herons and Clapper Rails the sound of the marsh, and in April the woods on Dauphin Island fill with warblers, buntings and orioles that have just made the crossing.

Best months to listen

Late March to early May is the peak, with residents singing for territory while migrants pass through, and on the coast the second half of April is what people plan vacations around. Summer is hot by 9 am and the singing stops with the heat, so start at first light. Fall migration, August into November, is quieter, more chips than songs.

Winter brings White-throated Sparrows to the brush, ducks to the river and the cranes to Wheeler, while the cardinal, the wren and the mockingbird keep singing through the short cold.

Places worth the drive

• Dauphin Island, south of Mobile: the first land many northbound migrants touch, with a 164-acre Audubon Bird Sanctuary at the center of it. April is the month.
• Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge, near Gulf Shores: dunes and pine-oak woods where migrants rest and refuel in spring and fall.
• Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge, Decatur: Sandhill and Whooping Cranes in winter, ducks on the Tennessee River backwaters.
• The Alabama Birding Trails: eight regional trails with 280 public sites, so there is a marked stop within a short drive of almost anyone.

None of that is required to fill the album. A yard with a feeder and a birdbath will hand you a quarter of the 100 by June.

Listen before you go

Three of the common Alabama birds, so the first songs you hear outside already ring a bell.

Canada Goose song

0:12

Recording by Chase Harris, CC0, via iNaturalist.

Mallard song

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Recording by Fionn Ó Marcaigh, CC BY 4.0, via iNaturalist.

Mourning Dove song

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Recording by Chase Harris, CC0, via iNaturalist.

Questions people ask

Nearby albums

Album data: public bird observations aggregated through GBIF, ranked by report frequency in Alabama. Updated September 30, 2026.