Birds of Arizona

Arizona is two states by ear. The low desert around Phoenix, Tucson and Yuma is doves, quail, thrashers, verdins and woodpeckers in saguaros, and it is loudest from February to May, before the heat. Above the Mogollon Rim, around Flagstaff and the White Mountains, ponderosa pine and aspen sound like the Rockies: Steller's Jays, Mountain Chickadees, Western Tanagers. In between, on the Colorado Plateau, pinyon and juniper hold Pinyon Jays and ravens.

Then there is the southeast corner, where the Madrean Sky Islands rise out of the grassland. The Santa Ritas, Huachucas and Chiricahuas carry birds from Mexico that occur nowhere else in the country, and every serious birder in America ends up there eventually.

The Arizona album

These are the 100 birds people report most often in Arizona, 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 Mourning Dove and the White-winged Dove are the first sounds of a desert morning, and in a Tucson neighborhood in May the White-winged Doves can be loud enough to cover everything else. The House Finch sings its long warble from the wires, the Lesser Goldfinch adds thin, wheezy notes, and the Verdin, a tiny gray bird with a yellow face, gives a three-note whistle heard far more often than the bird is seen.

The Cactus Wren is the state bird and the hardest to ignore. It sings from the top of a cholla or a saguaro, a rising, rasping char-char-char-char that gets louder as it goes. Gila Woodpeckers roll out a churring call from the same saguaros, and the Curve-billed Thrasher whistles a sharp whit-wheet from the yard.

Gambel's Quail run across the street in a line, calling chi-ca-go to keep the covey together, and the Greater Roadrunner gives a low, descending series of coos that people rarely connect with the bird. The Anna's Hummingbird sings all winter, a scratchy, buzzy song from a bare branch, and the Common Raven croaks over all of it.

The regions, by ear

The Sonoran Desert

Phoenix, Tucson and everything between. Saguaro National Park holds the classic cast: Gila Woodpecker, Cactus Wren, Gambel's Quail, Greater Roadrunner, and after dark the Elf Owl, the smallest owl in the world, which returns to the saguaros by March. Great-tailed Grackles have the parking lots.

The sky islands

Madera Canyon, in the Santa Rita Mountains 25 miles southeast of Tucson, has more than 256 recorded species and 15 kinds of hummingbird, plus the Elegant Trogon, whose barking croak echoes off the sycamores in spring. The Canyon Wren pours its descending whistle down the rock, and Mexican Jays travel the oaks in noisy family groups. The San Pedro River, a green ribbon through the desert, is one of the great migration corridors of the Southwest.

The high country

Ponderosa pine above the Rim: Steller's Jay scolding, Mountain Chickadee whistling a hoarse fee-bee-bee, Western Tanager singing like a robin with a sore throat, and the wing trill of Broad-tailed Hummingbirds passing overhead.

The Colorado Plateau

Pinyon-juniper woodland and open sky: Pinyon Jays in wandering flocks, ravens and Western Bluebirds.

Best months to listen

The desert starts early. Anna's Hummingbirds and doves are going in January, Cactus Wrens and thrashers are in full song by February, and March and April are the peak in the lowlands, with migrants moving through the river corridors. By June the low desert is quiet except at dawn, and the action moves up: the sky islands and the Rim are best from May into August.

Winter is the lowland season again. Sparrows fill the washes, Sandhill Cranes gather at Whitewater Draw in the southeast, and the Anna's Hummingbird in your yard is still singing.

Places worth the drive

• Saguaro National Park, both sides of Tucson: the Sonoran Desert cast, and Elf Owls calling at dusk in spring.
• Madera Canyon, southeast of Tucson: trogons, hummingbirds and the sound of a canyon full of Mexican Jays.
• San Pedro River, near Sierra Vista: cottonwood forest and the busiest migration corridor in the state.
• Whitewater Draw, in the Sulphur Springs Valley: Sandhill Cranes in winter, by the thousand.
• The Mogollon Rim and Flagstaff: mountain birds within two hours of Phoenix.

You do not need any of them. A Phoenix backyard with a mesquite and a hummingbird feeder will give you 25 of the 100 in a month.

Listen before you go

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

Mallard song

0:09

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

Gambel's Quail song

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Recording by Elizabeth, CC0, via iNaturalist.

Rock Pigeon song

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Recording by Richard Littauer, CC BY 4.0, via iNaturalist.

Questions people ask

Nearby albums

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