Birds of Kansas

Kansas has a longer state list than most people expect: 483 species as of January 2022, according to the Kansas Ornithological Society. The reason is geography. The eastern third has oak-hickory woods and rivers that sound like Missouri. The Flint Hills hold the largest surviving piece of tallgrass prairie on the continent. The center has two enormous marshes on the Central Flyway, and the west is short grass, wheat and sky, where the birds sing on the wing because there is nothing to perch on.

In town it is simpler. Cardinal, dove, robin, jay and crow lead the album in every county seat, and a Western Meadowlark on the first fence post past the city limits tells you where you are.

The Kansas album

These are the 100 birds people report most often in Kansas, 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 is the most reported bird in Kansas, whistling cheer, cheer, cheer from the top of a hackberry from February on. The Mourning Dove is second, and its soft coo-OO-oo, oo, oo from the wire at dawn is the sound people mistake for an owl. The American Robin carols before first light from March into July, and the Blue Jay yells from the oaks.

The Black-capped Chickadee whistles fee-bee from the elms in most of the state, the Red-bellied Woodpecker rolls a churr from the cottonwoods, and starlings whistle and click from every grain elevator. Outside town, the Red-winged Blackbird sings conk-la-ree from the cattail ditch, and from April the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher sputters from the fence wire with its ridiculous tail hanging below it.

The regions, by ear

The eastern woods

Kansas City to Topeka and south: oak and hickory on the hills, cottonwood and sycamore along the rivers. This is the Kansas that sounds like the Midwest, with Tufted Titmice, Carolina Wrens, Barred Owls and Eastern Meadowlarks whistling from the pastures.

The Flint Hills

A band of limestone hills too rocky to plow, which is why the grass survived. Less than five percent of the continent's tallgrass prairie is left, most of it here, and Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve near Strong City protects 10,882 acres of it, with a bison herd of around 90. In April the Greater Prairie-Chickens boom on the ridges before dawn, and in June the hills are Dickcissel, Grasshopper Sparrow, Upland Sandpiper and Western Meadowlark from horizon to horizon.

The central marshes

Cheyenne Bottoms, about 41,000 acres in Barton County, is the largest wetland in the interior United States. In spring as many as 600,000 shorebirds of 39 species pass through, and about 45 percent of North America's shorebirds use it at some point. Quivira National Wildlife Refuge, 22,135 acres of rare inland salt marsh and sand prairie, adds nesting avocets, Snowy Plovers and Least Terns, and both marshes host Whooping Cranes on migration. On a calm April morning the sound is a wall of peeps and the yodeling of avocets.

The High Plains

West of Hays the land flattens, dries and opens. Horned Larks tinkle over the wheat stubble, Lark Buntings sing in fluttering display flights in June, and Burrowing Owls stand on prairie dog mounds.

Best months to listen

April and May are the peak. Shorebirds crowd Cheyenne Bottoms and Quivira, prairie-chickens boom in the Flint Hills, and the resident songbirds are on territory in town. June is grassland song, loudest in the first hour of light. Fall migration runs September to December at Quivira, with Sandhill Cranes, geese and Whooping Cranes passing through. Winter is cardinals and chickadees at the feeder, and a hawk on every other telephone pole.

Places worth the drive

• Cheyenne Bottoms, Barton County: the largest inland marsh in the country, hundreds of thousands of shorebirds in April and May, more than 340 species recorded.
• Quivira National Wildlife Refuge, central Kansas: salt marsh and sand prairie, Whooping Cranes in fall, Snowy Plovers and avocets in summer.
• Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, near Strong City: bison, booming prairie-chickens in April, grassland song in June.
• Flint Hills National Wildlife Refuge, in the Neosho River valley: managed wetlands full of ducks and geese on migration, with an auto tour route.

None of them is required. A town with old elms and a creek gives you the first 25 cards of the Warble album by June.

Listen before you go

Three of the common Kansas 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.

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 Kansas. Updated September 30, 2026.