Birds of Wisconsin

The Records Committee of the Wisconsin Society for Ornithology listed 441 species and one species pair as of July 2022, with 96 of them accidental, 34 casual and 10 introduced. Lake Michigan on one side, Lake Superior and the Mississippi on the others, and in between dairy farms, oak savanna, the big marshes of the center and the pine and spruce of the north.

Most people live in the southeast, from Milwaukee to Madison, and the everyday album there is chickadee, robin, crow, cardinal and goldfinch, with jays and a nuthatch at the feeder and Red-winged Blackbirds in every roadside ditch from the first week of March.

The Wisconsin album

These are the 100 birds people report most often in Wisconsin, 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 Black-capped Chickadee leads the album, which is what happens in a state with real winters: it is at the feeder in January calling chick-a-dee-dee-dee and whistling its two-note fee-bee on the first sunny days of February. The American Robin is second, the American Crow third, and the Northern Cardinal fourth, whistling from the top of a spruce from late February on. The American Goldfinch rounds out the top five, calling po-ta-to-chip in bounding flight.

The Blue Jay screams and does hawk impressions in the oaks, the Mourning Dove coos from the wire, and the Red-winged Blackbird shouts conk-la-ree from every cattail from March to July. Canada Geese and Mallards are on every park pond, the Downy Woodpecker whinnies from the suet, and the White-breasted Nuthatch gives a nasal yank, yank while walking headfirst down the trunk.

The regions, by ear

The southeast and the Lake Michigan shore

Cities, suburbs and the lakeshore parks, which catch migrants in May and September: gulls and Caspian Terns on the water, and warblers in the shoreline trees after a night of south wind.

Horicon Marsh and the central wetlands

Horicon Marsh, in Dodge and Fond du Lac counties, is one of the largest freshwater marshes in the country at more than 33,000 acres. The 22,000-acre Horicon National Wildlife Refuge was established in 1941 as a sanctuary for migratory birds, the Redhead duck in particular, and the marsh is habitat for more than 300 species of birds. Fall brings huge numbers of Canada Geese, ducks and Sandhill Cranes; spring brings waterbirds and songbirds, and the three-mile auto tour opens on March 16 and runs into late November. The sound of the place in October is geese by the thousand and cranes bugling overhead.

The Driftless Area and the Mississippi

Steep unglaciated hills and bluffs in the southwest: Eastern Meadowlarks and Bobolinks in the hayfields, Scarlet Tanagers and Wood Thrushes in the bluff forest, and Bald Eagles along the Mississippi all winter.

The Northwoods and Lake Superior

Pine, spruce, bog and lake country, where the sound turns boreal: Common Loons at dusk, Hermit Thrushes and Veeries in the evening, White-throated Sparrows whistling Old Sam Peabody. On the Lake Superior shore, the Chequamegon Bay checklist around the Apostle Islands has more than 300 species observed since 1972, and the islands are a spring stopover for songbirds, hawks, waterfowl and shorebirds. Bald Eagles went from none in the 1970s to 46 active nests on 21 of the 22 islands by 2018, and Piping Plovers nest on Long Island, with 3 to 5 successful nests a year between 2006 and 2020.

Best months to listen

The second and third weeks of May are the peak in the south, with the residents singing and the warblers moving through the lakeshore parks. The Northwoods run two weeks behind, with early June best for loons and thrushes. October is for Horicon, when the geese and cranes stack up before heading south.

Winter is long and the chickadee carries it, with nuthatches, cardinals and jays at the feeder. The first robin song in March is the sound Wisconsinites wait for.

Places worth the drive

• Horicon National Wildlife Refuge, Dodge County: more than 300 species, geese and Sandhill Cranes in fall, a three-mile auto tour.
• Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, Bayfield: spring migrants, Bald Eagles on nearly every island, Piping Plovers on Long Island.
• The Mississippi bluffs, from Prairie du Chien to La Crosse: tanagers in the woods and eagles on the river in winter.

None of it is required. A yard with a maple and a feeder in Waukesha or Eau Claire gives you the first 20 cards in Warble.

Listen before you go

Three of the common Wisconsin 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.

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 Wisconsin. Updated September 30, 2026.