Complete field guide to every bird species recorded in Florida. Browse by name, filter by taxonomic family or order, and tap any species for photos, range maps, songs, and identification tips.
All sighting data is sourced from eBird, the world's largest citizen science database for birds. Use this guide to discover what birds live in Florida, learn their calls, and plan birding trips to the best hotspots in the region.
Florida is the closest thing the United States has to birding in the tropics. The peninsula funnels migrants down to the Keys and out to the Dry Tortugas, the Everglades stage the continent's greatest wading-bird show, and a whole cast of specialties — Snail Kite, Limpkin, Mangrove Cuckoo, White-crowned Pigeon, Short-tailed Hawk — is easier here than anywhere else in the country. The state also hosts its own endemic: the Florida Scrub-Jay, found nowhere else on Earth.
Timing works differently here than in the rest of the country. Winter is peak season — the dry season concentrates herons, egrets, storks, and spoonbills into shrinking wetlands while ducks and sparrows pour in from the north. And South Florida adds a uniquely Floridian bonus list: established exotics from Spot-breasted Orioles to flocks of parrots that are countable on official state lists.
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Where to bird in Florida
Everglades National Park
The Anhinga Trail offers point-blank herons, Anhingas, and alligators; the road to Flamingo adds Snail Kite, Short-tailed Hawk, and winter flocks of American Flamingos in Florida Bay when water levels cooperate.
Dry Tortugas National Park
A boat or seaplane ride 70 miles past Key West: tens of thousands of nesting Sooty Terns and Brown Noddies, Magnificent Frigatebirds overhead, and April fallouts that can fill the fort's few trees with exhausted warblers.
Fort De Soto Park
Tampa Bay's legendary migrant trap. In April the mulberry trees and oak hammocks drip with warblers, tanagers, and buntings, while the flats hold terns and shorebirds year-round.
Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge
Black Point Wildlife Drive is Florida's best winter waterfowl and wader loop, with Reddish Egrets and Roseate Spoonbills all year — and reliable Florida Scrub-Jays on the Scrub Ridge Trail.
Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary
Audubon's old-growth bald-cypress boardwalk near Naples: nesting Wood Storks, Painted Buntings at the feeders in winter, and a genuine primeval-Florida feel.
J.N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge
Sanibel Island's mangrove lagoons at low tide concentrate spoonbills, Reddish Egrets, and shorebirds; it's also one of the more reliable places in the state for Mangrove Cuckoo.
Wakodahatchee Wetlands & Green Cay
Two Delray Beach boardwalks over managed wetlands where Purple Gallinules, Limpkins, and Least Bitterns walk below your feet and the rookeries are an arm's length away — the easiest close-range bird photography in Florida.
The Florida Keys
White-crowned Pigeon, Mangrove Cuckoo, Black-whiskered Vireo, and summering Antillean Nighthawks; Fort Zachary Taylor in Key West is the spring migrant trap, and Curry Hammock's fall hawkwatch tallies world-record Peregrine counts.
Three Lakes Wildlife Management Area
Central Florida dry prairie at its best: Red-cockaded Woodpecker, Bachman's Sparrow, Crested Caracara, and Sandhill Cranes, with Snail Kites on nearby Lake Kissimmee.
The Miami exotics circuit
Suburban parks and neighborhoods from Kendall to Miami Springs host countable populations of Spot-breasted Oriole, Red-whiskered Bulbul, Egyptian Goose, and a rainbow of parakeets and parrots — a checklist experience found nowhere else in America.
Florida birding by season
Spring (March–May) — Migrants on the coasts, specialties on territory
April is the month: fallouts at Fort De Soto and Fort Zachary Taylor, the Dry Tortugas at their peak, and every Florida specialty singing. Caribbean strays like Bahama Mockingbird turn up almost annually in the Keys.
Swallow-tailed Kites patrol the wetlands before their early-August departure, Antillean Nighthawks call over the Keys at dusk, and post-breeding wading birds disperse everywhere. Start early — afternoon storms run like clockwork.
Fall (September–November) — The peninsula becomes a raptor funnel
Songbirds trickle through for months, and raptors pour down the peninsula — the Florida Keys Hawkwatch at Curry Hammock has recorded the highest single-day Peregrine Falcon counts on the planet in early October.
Winter (December–February) — Peak season in the subtropics
The dry season concentrates spectacular numbers of waders, ducks raft on the refuges, sparrows and Painted Buntings winter in the scrub, and every snowbird rarity from Vermilion Flycatcher to flamingos is in play. This is when Florida birding is at its absolute best.
All 732 bird species recorded in Florida
Every species on this list has been recorded in Florida on eBird. Tap any bird for photos, range maps, songs, and identification tips.