Birds of Mississippi

Mississippi is mostly trees, fields and water. The Mississippi Ornithological Society's records committee had 426 species on the state list as of March 2018. The Delta in the northwest, between the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers, is flat farmland that was once bottomland hardwood forest, and it sits in the middle of the Mississippi Flyway, which makes it one of the great waterfowl regions anywhere. The middle of the state is pine and hardwood hills. The coast is marsh, barrier islands and the last wet pine savanna in the country.

In a yard in Jackson or Tupelo, though, the state is cardinal, jay, mockingbird, Carolina Wren, dove and Red-bellied Woodpecker, and those six lead the album.

The Mississippi album

These are the 100 birds people report most often in Mississippi, 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 leads the album, whistling cheer, cheer, cheer from the crape myrtle in every month of the year. The Blue Jay is second, and the Northern Mockingbird third, running through its borrowed phrases from the top of the tallest thing on the block and, in spring, from the streetlight at 2 am. The Carolina Wren shouts teakettle, teakettle from under the carport.

The Red-bellied Woodpecker rolls a churr from the pecans, the Carolina Chickadee and the Tufted Titmouse work the feeder together, and the Eastern Bluebird warbles softly from a fence post beside a nest box. A Great Blue Heron stands in every farm pond.

The regions, by ear

The Delta

Flat, open and wet, about 4.4 million acres of the richest soil in the country. In winter the flooded fields and oxbows fill with ducks and geese moving down the flyway. The remaining bottomland forest holds Prothonotary Warblers and Barred Owls in summer.

The hills and the Natchez Trace

Pine and hardwood ridges from the Tennessee line down to Natchez. The Natchez Trace Parkway has 134 confirmed bird species, with Wood Thrushes and Scarlet Tanagers on the forest trails, Mississippi Kites and Bald Eagles over the overlooks, and, every fall at Rock Spring, hundreds of people come to watch Ruby-throated Hummingbirds feed on jewelweed.

The Prairie and Noxubee

East-central Mississippi. Noxubee refuge, established in 1940 across three counties, was farmed-out and overgrazed land that is now bottomland hardwood forest and managed wetland. It holds the endangered Red-cockaded Woodpecker in its pines, wintering waterfowl, and enough migrant songbirds that Audubon lists it as one of five globally important bird areas in the state.

The Gulf Coast

Marsh, barrier islands and savanna. Gulf Islands National Seashore has more than 300 species: Brown Pelicans, Black Skimmers, Least Terns, Ospreys, Snowy Egrets and plovers, with gulls and shorebirds on the beach all year and exhausted migrants dropping into the trees in spring. Inland from the beach, the Mississippi Sandhill Crane refuge protects the last wet pine savanna in the United States and a crane that fell to 30 to 35 birds when the refuge was created in 1975 and now numbers about 200.

Best months to listen

March and April are the peak. Residents are singing hard and migrants are coming across the Gulf and up the river, and the woods are loud from first light until the heat builds. May and June are nesting season, still busy at dawn. Fall is slow and long, hummingbirds in September, ducks arriving in November. Winter is the Delta's season, with ducks, geese and eagles on the water and sparrows in the hedges, while the cardinals and wrens keep singing through it.

Places worth the drive

• Gulf Islands National Seashore, Ocean Springs and the barrier islands: more than 300 species, pelicans, skimmers, terns and plovers.
• Mississippi Sandhill Crane National Wildlife Refuge, Gautier: the last wet pine savanna and about 200 cranes.
• Sam D. Hamilton Noxubee National Wildlife Refuge, near Starkville: Red-cockaded Woodpeckers, bottomland hardwoods, winter waterfowl.
• Natchez Trace Parkway: 134 species along the road, tanagers and thrushes on the trails, hummingbirds at Rock Spring in fall.

None of it is required for the album. A yard with a pecan tree and a bluebird box hands you the first 20 cards in Warble by April.

Listen before you go

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

Canada Goose song

0:12

Recording by Chase Harris, CC0, via iNaturalist.

Mourning Dove song

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Recording by Chase Harris, CC0, via iNaturalist.

Chimney Swift song

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Recording by Mary G, CC0, via iNaturalist.

Questions people ask

Nearby albums

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