Birds of Oklahoma

The Oklahoma Ornithological Society's Bird Records Committee had 488 species on the state list as of May 2022, 114 of them accidental. The number is high for a landlocked state because Oklahoma is a crossroads: the oak and hickory forest of the Ozarks and Ouachitas in the east, the Cross Timbers scrub through the middle, tallgrass and mixed prairie beyond that, and the short-grass High Plains of the Panhandle, which sound more like Colorado than Tulsa.

For most people the first birds are the same from Muskogee to Lawton: cardinal, crow, dove, jay and the little Carolina Chickadee at the feeder. Then the state shows its hand: the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher arrives in spring and the mockingbird sings from the mailbox.

The Oklahoma album

These are the 100 birds people report most often in Oklahoma, 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 and leads the morning, whistling cheer, cheer, cheer from the top of a redcedar. The American Crow is second, cawing over every town, and the Mourning Dove is third, cooing from the wires in a rhythm people mistake for an owl. The Blue Jay screams from the pecans and the Carolina Chickadee gives a fast, high fee-bee, fee-bay, higher and quicker than its northern cousin.

The Carolina Wren shouts teakettle, teakettle from under the deck at any hour and in any weather. The Northern Mockingbird sings from the highest point on the block, repeating each borrowed phrase several times before switching, and keeps going on spring nights. Overhead, the Turkey Vulture makes the list without a voice at all, rocking on long wings over every highway.

The regions, by ear

Green Country and the Ouachitas

The eastern third is hill forest and lakes, and it sounds like Arkansas: Wood Thrush and Summer Tanager in the oaks, Pine Warbler trills in the shortleaf pine of the Ouachitas, Pileated Woodpeckers laughing across the hollows and Barred Owls calling who cooks for you along the rivers after dark.

The Cross Timbers and the center

A belt of scrubby post oak and blackjack oak with prairie openings runs down the middle of the state through Oklahoma City and Tulsa. Painted Buntings sing sweet, jumbled warbles from the thickets, Bewick's Wrens buzz from brush piles, Northern Bobwhites whistle their own name from field edges and Scissor-tailed Flycatchers work the fences.

The Wichita Mountains

Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge near Lawton covers about 59,000 acres of granite mountains, mixed-grass prairie and lakes. Set aside in 1901 as a forest reserve, it is the oldest managed wildlife area in the Fish and Wildlife Service system, and it has recorded 240 bird species, including the Black-capped Vireo, a scrub songbird that was only recently taken off the endangered list. Fifteen bison sent from the Bronx Zoo in 1907 started a herd that now numbers about 650.

The northwest and the Panhandle

Big sky, short grass and salt. Salt Plains National Wildlife Refuge in north-central Oklahoma protects 32,197 acres, about 12,000 of them bare salt flat, where Snowy Plovers nest in summer and thousands of Sandhill Cranes, ducks and shorebirds stop in migration, with a few endangered Whooping Cranes among them. Farther west, the Panhandle is Western Meadowlark and Horned Lark country, with Lesser Prairie-Chickens booming on a few leks in March and April.

Best months to listen

April and May are the peak: the scissor-tails and buntings are back, the residents are singing, and warblers move through the eastern woods. March is crane and prairie-chicken season in the west. Summer mornings are loud until the heat arrives, then everything but the doves and the cicadas goes quiet, so start at first light. Late summer brings the scissor-tail roosts, October the ducks and cranes. Winter is cardinals and chickadees at the feeder, big blackbird flocks over the fields and Bald Eagles on the reservoirs.

Places worth the drive

• Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge, near Lawton: 240 species, Black-capped Vireo, bison.
• Salt Plains National Wildlife Refuge, north-central Oklahoma: cranes and shorebirds on the salt flats, Snowy Plovers in summer, Whooping Cranes in migration.
• The Ouachita National Forest, southeast: pine and oak hills with Pine Warblers, tanagers and Barred Owls.

You do not need the drive. A yard in Norman with a feeder and a fence wire hands you the cardinal, the chickadee, the wren and, from April, the state bird, and that is a good start on the Warble album.

Listen before you go

Three of the common Oklahoma 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.

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 Oklahoma. Updated September 30, 2026.