Birds of Washington

The Washington Bird Records Committee listed 522 species as of November 2021, with 159 of them accidental and 11 introduced. That total comes from range: the Pacific coast and the Olympic rainforest, the inland sea of Puget Sound, two mountain ranges, and the sagebrush and wheat of the Columbia Basin.

Most of the people are on the wet side, in Seattle, Tacoma and Olympia, and the everyday album there is robins, crows, Song Sparrows in the blackberries, juncos under the feeder and a Spotted Towhee scratching in the leaves, through a winter that rarely freezes.

The Washington album

These are the 100 birds people report most often in Washington, 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 American Robin leads, singing from February in the lowlands and running past dark on June evenings. The American Crow is second and present everywhere, including the roosts that darken the Seattle sky at dusk in winter. The Song Sparrow is third, darker here than in the East but with the same three clear notes and a jumble. The Dark-eyed Junco trills from the top of a Douglas-fir, and the Black-capped Chickadee whistles its two-note fee-bee from the alders.

The Spotted Towhee is the one easterners do not know: a big rusty-sided sparrow that scratches noisily in the leaf litter and calls a rising, catlike mew from the salal. The Northern Flicker shouts wick-wick-wick from the snags, and Anna's Hummingbird sings a thin scratchy song from a bare twig in January, in the rain. Mallards, Canada Geese, starlings and House Finches fill in the rest of the top twelve.

The regions, by ear

Puget Sound

Cities, mudflats and second-growth forest. Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge, where the Nisqually River meets Puget Sound near Olympia, was established in 1974 and has recorded at least 250 bird species; in 2009 it completed the largest estuary restoration in the Pacific Northwest, and a mile-long boardwalk runs out over the tide flats. In winter it is ducks, geese and Bald Eagles; in spring the willows along the dikes are full of warblers and Swainson's Thrushes spiraling upward at dusk.

The Olympic Peninsula and the coast

Olympic National Park runs from sea level to more than 2,000 meters and holds about 300 species across beach, rainforest and mountain meadow. The rainforest voice is the Varied Thrush, a single long buzzing whistle that hangs in the fog, with Pacific Wrens pouring out long tinkling songs from the roots of the big trees. Marbled Murrelets fly in from the sea at dawn to nest on mossy limbs, Northern Spotted Owls are monitored in the old growth, Sooty Grouse hoot from the mountain meadows, and Peregrine Falcons hunt the cliffs.

The Cascades

Fir and hemlock below, heather and snow above. Steller's Jays scold through the campgrounds, Hermit Thrushes sing in the subalpine at dusk, and in July the high meadows are full of Mountain Bluebirds.

East of the mountains

Sagebrush, wheat, ponderosa pine and basalt, scoured into channels by ice age floods. The sound out here is the Western Meadowlark from a fence post, the Vesper Sparrow at dusk, and the Sage Thrasher's long run of phrases from the top of a bush.

Best months to listen

May is the peak in the lowlands on both sides of the mountains, with the residents singing and the flycatchers, warblers and thrushes just in. The Cascades and the Olympics run a month behind, with late June and July the time for the high meadows. The Columbia Basin is best in April and May, and the sagebrush is quiet by July.

Winter in Puget Sound is better than it has any right to be: ducks by the thousands, Bald Eagles on the rivers, Anna's Hummingbirds singing in January, and the robin starting again by Valentine's Day.

Places worth the drive

• Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge, Olympia: at least 250 species, a mile-long estuary boardwalk, winter waterfowl and eagles.
• Olympic National Park: about 300 species, Varied Thrushes and Pacific Wrens in the rainforest, murrelets on the coast.
• Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge, near Spokane: scablands, ponderosa pine and waterfowl ponds.

None of it is required. A yard with a cedar and a blackberry tangle in Tacoma or Bellingham gives you the first 20 cards in Warble.

Listen before you go

Three of the common Washington 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 Washington. Updated September 30, 2026.