Birds of California

California is several states stacked side by side. The coast is fog, gulls, pelicans and the Wrentit's bouncing-ball song from the scrub. The Central Valley is farmland that fills with Pacific Flyway ducks and geese from November on. The foothills are oak woodland and chaparral, quail and scrub-jay and Acorn Woodpecker country. The Sierra Nevada rises to alpine tundra, and the deserts in the south and east sound like Arizona.

A yard in Los Angeles, Sacramento or San Jose is the same twenty birds, though: House Finch, Black Phoebe, Anna's Hummingbird, crow, Mourning Dove, scrub-jay, towhee, Lesser Goldfinch, Bushtit and, in winter, White-crowned Sparrows and Yellow-rumped Warblers.

The California album

These are the 100 birds people report most often in California, 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 House Finch is the voice of every California street, a long, rolling warble that usually ends on a rising buzz. The Black Phoebe, black with a white belly, sits on the fence and says fee-bee in a thin, sharp voice, and the Anna's Hummingbird sings all year from a bare twig, a scratchy, buzzy series that few people realize is a song.

The California Scrub-Jay is the loud blue one, with harsh, rising screeches from the top of the oak. The California Towhee gives a metallic chink from under the hedge and the Lesser Goldfinch wheezes and twitters from the sunflowers. In winter the White-crowned Sparrow whistles a short, wistful song from the same hedge.

The California Quail is the state bird and a real backyard bird wherever brush meets houses. Listen for the three-note chi-ca-go assembly call, the soft pip notes of a covey feeding, and the sudden roar of wings when one flushes.

The regions, by ear

The coast

Gulls, Brown Pelicans and the surf, with the Wrentit singing its accelerating ping-pong-ball song from every patch of coastal scrub. Point Reyes, north of San Francisco, has recorded nearly 490 species, more than most entire states, because the peninsula sticks out into the Pacific Flyway and catches whatever passes.

The Central Valley

Flat, farmed and, in winter, deafening. The Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge alone supports more than 500,000 ducks and 250,000 geese between September and April, with the peak in late November and December. Yellow-billed Magpies, found nowhere on earth but California, chatter from the oaks.

Foothills and chaparral

Oak woodland with Acorn Woodpeckers laughing waka-waka from their granary trees, scrub-jays, quail, Spotted Towhees trilling from the brush, and Oak Titmice with a plain, whistled song.

The Sierra Nevada

Yosemite has documented 262 species across 11,000 feet of elevation. Steller's Jay and Dark-eyed Junco are the common ones, Western Tanagers sing from the pines, American Dippers sing over the roar of the creeks even in winter, and the Mountain Chickadee whistles a hoarse cheese-bur-ger from the firs.

The deserts

Cactus Wrens, Gambel's Quail and roadrunners in the low Colorado Desert; at the Salton Sea, which sits more than 200 feet below sea level, pelicans, grebes and Burrowing Owls.

Best months to listen

California has no real off season. Anna's Hummingbirds and House Finches sing in January, the chaparral is in full voice by March, and April and May bring migrants along the coast and song to the foothills. The Sierra runs later: June and July on the high passes. Summer lowlands are quiet by mid morning.

Winter is the Valley and the coast: geese overhead from November, White-crowned Sparrows in every hedge, and the refuges at their loudest in December.

Places worth the drive

• Point Reyes National Seashore, Marin County: nearly 490 species, Snowy Plovers on the beach and Spotted Owls in the firs.
• Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge, near Willows: the auto tour through half a million ducks in December.
• Yosemite National Park: mountain birds from the Valley floor to the tundra, best from June.
• Mono Lake, east of the Sierra: one of the largest California Gull colonies anywhere, and grebes and phalaropes by the hundreds of thousands in late summer.
• The Salton Sea, Imperial County: a desert lake below sea level where a huge share of the continent's Eared Grebes and White Pelicans stop.

You do not need any of them. A feeder in any California suburb gives you 30 of the 100 in a season.

Listen before you go

Three of the common California 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.

California Quail song

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Recording by Anne Parsons, CC0, via iNaturalist.

Questions people ask

Nearby albums

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