Birds of Tennessee

The Tennessee Bird Records Committee listed 423 species as of February 2020, with 41 of them accidental, 5 introduced and 2 extinct. The state is long and thin and tilts from the Mississippi River in the west, past the Tennessee River and the Nashville basin, up onto the Cumberland Plateau and into the Smokies.

For a beginner, the first dozen are the same from Memphis to Knoxville, and every one of them stays all year, so you can learn them in January when nothing else is making noise.

The Tennessee album

These are the 100 birds people report most often in Tennessee, 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 the dawn chorus, a clear cheer, cheer, cheer that starts in February and runs through summer, with a sharp metallic chip the rest of the day. Right behind it is the Carolina Wren, a small rusty bird with a voice sized for something much larger: teakettle, teakettle, teakettle from under the deck, in any month, in any weather.

The Carolina Chickadee is the chickadee here, not the Black-capped one of the northern states, with a faster, higher four-note whistle. Its usual companion is the Tufted Titmouse, whistling peter, peter, peter through the oaks. The Blue Jay screams, the American Crow caws from the field edge, the Mourning Dove moans from the wire, and the Red-bellied Woodpecker rolls out a rising churr from the big trees.

The Eastern Bluebird rounds out the top twelve, which says something about how much pasture and fence line Tennessee still has. Its soft tur-a-lee from a post is one of the quietest songs in the album.

The regions, by ear

West Tennessee and the Mississippi

Flat bottomland, river and cypress. Reelfoot Lake in the far northwest corner is where the state's winter gets loud, with ducks, geese and Bald Eagles on the water from late fall, and Prothonotary Warblers singing a ringing sweet, sweet, sweet from the flooded timber in summer.

The Tennessee River and Middle Tennessee

Kentucky Lake and the farm country around Nashville. Tennessee National Wildlife Refuge, established in 1945, runs more than 51,000 acres along 65 miles of the Tennessee River in three units, Big Sandy, Duck River and Busseltown, with more than 300 bird species recorded on its crop fields, mudflats, wetlands and forest. Around Nashville the cedar glades and pastures are bluebird and Field Sparrow country, with Indigo Buntings on every roadside wire from May.

The Cumberland Plateau

Sandstone gorges, hemlock and oak, and deep-woods singing: Wood Thrush at dusk, Scarlet Tanager overhead, Ovenbird shouting teacher, teacher from the ground, Louisiana Waterthrush along the creeks in March before the leaves are out.

The Smokies and East Tennessee

Great Smoky Mountains National Park has documented more than 240 species, with about 60 that live in the park year-round and nearly 120 that nest there in the warm months, 52 of them neotropical migrants. Warblers are the most diverse group in the park: Chestnut-sided, Blackburnian, Kentucky and Prairie Warblers in the lower woods, Canada Warblers up on Kuwohi Road. Cades Cove's meadows add sparrows, Eastern Kingbirds and Northern Harriers; Cataloochee Valley adds Wild Turkeys and raptors.

Best months to listen

Late April into May is the peak statewide: the residents are on territory, the migrants are passing through, and the Smokies are filling with warblers from the bottom up. The park's own advice is early mornings in spring and fall migration, and Newfound Gap Road in spring and early summer. June is still full in the mountains after the lowlands have gone quiet in the heat.

Winter has its own schedule. The waterfowl and the eagles settle on Reelfoot and Kentucky Lake, the Carolina Wren keeps singing through the cold, and the cardinal starts again on the first warm afternoon in February.

Places worth the drive

• Reelfoot Lake, northwest corner: cypress, winter waterfowl and Bald Eagles.
• Tennessee National Wildlife Refuge, Kentucky Lake: 51,000 acres on 65 miles of river, more than 300 species, winter ducks and geese.
• Great Smoky Mountains National Park: more than 240 species, warblers by elevation, Cades Cove for open-country birds and Kuwohi Road for the high ones.

None of them are required. A backyard with one oak and a brush pile in Chattanooga or Jackson hands you the first 20 cards in Warble.

Listen before you go

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

Canada Goose song

0:12

Recording by Chase Harris, CC0, via iNaturalist.

Wood Duck 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.

Questions people ask

Nearby albums

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