State birds quiz
Do you know your state birds? For each state, pick its bird from four choices. Because a few birds are shared by many states, the answers repeat more than you might expect, and after every question you will see which other states chose the same bird.
How many questions?
A head start
You can get a lot of questions right by knowing just three birds. The northern cardinal is the state bird of seven states in the East and Midwest: Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia. The western meadowlark belongs to six western and Plains states, and the northern mockingbird to five southern states. In all, the 50 state birds cover only 27 species.
The ones to memorize
The unique choices are the ones that catch people out. Louisiana’s bird is the brown pelican, Minnesota’s the common loon, Hawaii’s the nēnē, a native goose, and Utah’s the California gull, after the gulls that ate the crickets destroying the pioneers’ crops in 1848. Two states chose chickens: Delaware the Blue Hen and Rhode Island the Rhode Island Red. Several picked game birds, including Pennsylvania’s ruffed grouse, Alaska’s willow ptarmigan and South Dakota’s ring-necked pheasant.
Each state’s bird page shows a photograph, how to recognize the bird and the story of how the state chose it.
Study list: all 50 answers
Questions people ask
- What is the most common state bird?
- The northern cardinal, the state bird of seven states. The western meadowlark belongs to six and the northern mockingbird to five.
- How many different state birds are there?
- The 50 state birds cover only 27 species, because so many states chose the same few birds.
- Which state birds are chickens?
- Delaware's Blue Hen chicken and Rhode Island's Rhode Island Red.