My Top Ten Favorite Birds of All Time

What follows is my "Top Ten List of Favorite Birds." It's entirely subjective and arbitrary—at any given moment I may add birds or shift rankings. The tie for tenth place puts a total of 21 species in the "Top Ten." There were a bunch of "First Runners-Up," setting my list of all-time favorites at 57, again entirely subject to change. Within each ranking, birds are listed in taxonomic order.

1. Black-capped Chickadee 

2. Pileated Woodpecker 

Blue Jay

 

4. Common Nighthawk  

  

Florida Scrub-Jay 

 

Evening Grosbeak 

7. LeConte’s Sparrow 

 

Brown Thrasher 

            Piping Plover

 

10.     Ruby-throated Hummingbird

Rufous Hummingbird  

  

Limpkin  

  

          Cuban Tody 

          Black-capped Vireo 

 

 

Red-eyed Vireo 

 

Boreal Chickadee

Golden-crowned Kinglet

Pine Grosbeak

Common Redpoll

Winter Wren 

 

Northern Cardinal 

 

There's a tie for First Runner-Up, also very much subject to change, mostly as I realize other species deserve to be here, too.

Sora

Sandhill Crane

American Woodcock

Razorbill

Atlantic Puffin

Black Tern

Wood Stork

Great Blue Heron

California Condor

Boreal Owl

Northern Saw-whet Owl

Resplendent Quetzal

Cuban Tody

Red-headed Woodpecker

Red-bellied Woodpecker

Northern Flicker

Eastern Kingbird

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher

American Crow

Tufted Titmouse

Tree Swallow

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

Red-breasted Nuthatch

Bohemian Waxwing 

Cedar Waxwing

Brown Creeper

House Wren

Veery

Hermit Thrush

American Robin

House Sparrow  

Fox Sparrow

White-throated Sparrow

Song Sparrow

American Redstart

Blackburnian Warbler 

Rose-breasted Grosbeak