Birds of Alaska

Alaska has more than 40,000 miles of coastline, regions that barely resemble each other, and a bird year packed into about three months. Southeast is dripping rainforest, where Varied Thrushes hum from the hemlocks. Southcentral, with Anchorage and the Kenai Peninsula, is spruce, birch and tidal marsh. The Interior around Fairbanks is boreal forest, silent at 40 below in January and full of thrush song at midnight in June. North and west is tundra, and out on the Bering Sea islands, seabird cliffs hold birds by the million, plus the occasional stray blown in from Asia.

Around a house in Anchorage or Juneau the cast is smaller and friendlier: chickadees, redpolls, juncos, magpies, ravens, a robin on the lawn from May, and a Steller's Jay yelling at the feeder.

The Alaska album

These are the 100 birds people report most often in Alaska, 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 Black-capped Chickadee is the bird that keeps an Alaskan feeder company at 30 below, and its clear two-note fee-bee whistle, which starts up in February when the light comes back, is the first sign that winter will end.

The Common Raven is the winter voice of every Alaska town: croaks, knocks, bell notes and a sound like a drop of water in a bucket. The Black-billed Magpie chatters from the spruce tops around Anchorage, and redpolls and Pine Siskins arrive at the feeder in buzzy, restless flocks. The Bald Eagle counts as a backyard bird on the coast, and its thin chitter disappoints everyone who has seen a movie.

Summer flips the switch. The American Robin sings at 2 am in June because it is light at 2 am in June. The Varied Thrush gives one long, buzzing whistle from deep in the spruce, waits, then gives another on a different pitch. The Swainson's Thrush spirals upward out of the birches, and the Yellow-rumped Warbler is the warbler you will hear most.

The regions, by ear

Southeast

Rainforest, rain and tidewater. Varied Thrush and Pacific Wren from the understory, Steller's Jay scolding from the Sitka spruce, Bald Eagles nesting within sight of the harbor. Glacier Bay National Park lists about 240 species.

Southcentral

Anchorage sits between mountains and mudflats. Potter Marsh, just south of town, has a boardwalk over the wetland: Canada Geese, pintails, Arctic Terns screaming over the pools. On the Kenai Peninsula, Trumpeter Swans nest on the refuge lakes and the Common Loon calls across the canoe trails at dusk.

The Interior

Boreal forest: black spruce, birch, aspen and bog. Fairbanks has Creamer's Field, nearly 3,000 acres of former dairy pasture where Sandhill Cranes and geese land in spring and again in late summer. Denali National Park lists 167 species.

The Arctic and the Bering Sea

Tundra, ponds and no trees. Nome sees about 200 migratory species between mid May and mid June, many of them songbirds that winter in Asia. Utqiagvik on the North Slope has Snowy Owls, and the cliffs of the Pribilofs hold an estimated three million seabirds: murres, auklets, puffins, kittiwakes.

Best months to listen

May is arrival month. Shorebirds crowd the Copper River Delta from late April through May, some 12 million of them in a season, and the songbirds land in the second half of May. June is peak song, and with the sun barely dipping below the horizon the dawn chorus is more of a mood than a time: thrushes sing past midnight and robins are going again by three.

Winter is chickadees, redpolls, ravens and owls: quiet, but not silent.

Places worth the drive

• Potter Marsh, Anchorage: the boardwalk is the easiest birding in the state, best from late April through September.
• Creamer's Field, Fairbanks: Sandhill Cranes and geese on the old dairy fields in spring and again from late July.
• Copper River Delta, Cordova: the shorebird spectacle, late April into May.
• The Pribilofs, Nome and Gambell: the fly-in trips, for seabird cliffs by the million and strays from Siberia in early June.

You do not need a bush plane to fill the album. A feeder in Anchorage or Fairbanks, watched through one winter and one June, will hand you a third of it.

Listen before you go

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

Canada Goose song

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Recording by Chase Harris, CC0, via iNaturalist.

Mallard song

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

Bald Eagle song

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Recording by lavenderdame, CC0, via iNaturalist.

Questions people ask

Nearby albums

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