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Wild Florida: The Song Birds

Updated on September 19, 2013

The Beautiful Song Birds of Florida

Song birds light up our lives with their beauty and song. Florida, with it's warmth all year, is rich with birds. Exploring our preserves and back yards is an interesting and fun activity. We don't even have to walk very far from our back door. Hawks fly above us, Woodpeckers flick from tree to tree and Cardinals try to warn everyone that any one is around.

Links for references used as well as other uesful site are listed below.

Please note: The audio and video found on this page are linked files stored on another server. If the links don't work please right click and download the sound.

Watch, Listen, And Enjoy!

You never know if what you're seeing is something no one has ever seen before.

A very long time ago I and my family were watching our Purple Martins odd behavior. We had a Purple Martin house in the center of our large mowed lawn and Martins filled it every year. This year, as we watched, they were flying from the house to a nearby tree where they were landing, plucking leaves and flying back to their nests with the leaves. We never saw them do this before so didn't think they were lining their nests with the leaves. We know plants have chemicals and we guessed the birds were using the leaves to repeal pest insects. Now we hear that they've discovered birds do this.

Again, many years ago, we watched a sparrow caring for and feeding a young robin that was following it around. They use to think that just certain birds laid eggs in other birds nests. Now we hear that they are beginning to think that this happens much more frequently than believed.

You never know if what you're seeing is something no one has ever seen before. It doesn't matter if you're sitting at your back door and watching birds from your porch. It doesn't matter how much you know or how little you know. All you have to do is open your mind to the details.

Northern Mockingbird

State Bird of Florida

Mockingbirds are about 10" in length, with a 15" wingspan, grayish upper portions, white under sides, and white patches on the tail and wings. The mockingbird is omnivorous. About half its diet consists of arthropods, including beetles, ants, bees, wasps, and grasshoppers, but it will also eat earthworms and small lizards. These aggressive feeders can often be observed chasing down a grasshopper on a lawn, running, hopping and lunging at the prey, or flying just above the ground maneuvering behind a large wasp. They are also fond of zebra butterflies, the state butterfly. Mockingbirds are monogamous, usually for the length of a breeding season, and occasionally mates for life. The average lifespan is eight years. In the spring mockingbirds perform swift, acrobatic flights, male chasing female, often accompanied by the exchange of soft "hew" calls, repeatedly perching next to each other and taking off again. They will often build several nests in low bushes between 3 and 10 feet off the ground. Mockingbirds are fiercely territorial and will attack just about anything that comes into their territory but they have also been known to recognize individual people and selectively attack some and not others. Mockingbirds have fantastic songs! They will mimic songs and parts of songs of other birds, other animals such as dogs and cats, humans, mechanical sounds, and even the sounds of other mockingbirds.

From Birdwatchers Digest Bird Behavior

Mockingbirds can imitate about any sound imaginable, from a barking dog to squeaky hinges, to the notes from a piano to a cackling hen to even a cat meowing. What's more, their mimicry is so skilled that even electronic analysis would find it difficult to distinguish between the original sound and the impression."

Click on the link to

Hear a Mockingbird sing

This is, of course, only one bird. All Mockingbirds have different songs. It's in the songs variety that you can identify the singer as a Mockingbird.

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If you're ever out at night, with the full moon burning bright, and you hear some crazy bird singing with all it's might....

Well, Frank L. Stanton said it best.

The Mockingbird

by Frank L. Stanton

He didn't know much music

When first he come along;

An' all the birds went wonderin'

Why he didn't sing a song.

They primed their feathers in the sun,

An' sung their sweetest notes;

An' music jest come on the run

From all their purty throats!

But still that bird was silent

In summer time an' fall;

He jest set still an' listened

An' he wouldn't sing at all!

But one night when them songsters

Was tired out an' still,

An' the wind sighed down the valley

An' went creepin' up the hill;

When the stars was all a-tremble

In the dreamin' fields o' blue,

An' the daisy in the darkness

Felt the fallin' o' the dew, -

There come a sound o' melody

No mortal ever heard,

An' all the birds seemed singin'

From the throat o' one sweet bird!

Then the other birds went playin'

In a land too fur to call;

Fer there warn't no use in stayin'

When one bird could sing fer all!

Frank L. Stanton

Songs From Dixie Land
Songs From Dixie Land

For 36 years Frank L. Stanton filled his "Just From Georgia" column in the Atlanta Constitution with heart, vision and a unique ability to convey a culture that slipped away. He was designated the first poet laureate of Georgia in 1925, just two years before his death. His poetry is just a down right pleasure to read.


Common Myna

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission reports that "The Common Myna is native to southeastern Asia but has been introduced onto almost every tropical or subtropical oceanic island and Australia, where it is mostly found in open country and human environments. In Florida, populations remain small and widely scattered and tend to prefer shopping mall parking lots. Mynas are omnivorous and feed on fruits, seeds, insects, and human food. They nest in tree cavities, buildings, crowns of palms, large signs, and broken lights."

I had gone to breakfast one Sunday and there were about 4 Myna Birds mixed in with the Crackles at the edge of the outdoor dining area. I had to go over and take their pictures. It was sad that no one else there noticed the beautiful bird.

Painted Bunting

Male Painted Buntings are the most spectacularly colored of all North American songbirds, with a gaudy combination of red, blue, and green feathers. This species has two distinct breeding populations in North America, but overall, it has shown a significant decline across its entire range during the past 35 years. The exact causes for Painted Bunting's decline are not known, but they are believed to include habitat loss, cowbird parasitism, and trapping for the pet trade on its wintering grounds.

An adult male Painted Bunting is arguably the most distinctive songbird in North America, with the combination of a deep blue head, red underparts, a green back, and a red rump. While not as brightly colored as males, female Painted Buntings are also distinctive. The female has an overall greenish plumage which is more darkly colored above than below.

Painted Bunting favors somewhat open areas with dense brush at all seasons. Its diet consists mostly of seeds and insects, with insects predominating during the breeding season. These birds forage mostly on the ground or in low brush. Males defend territory by singing from a high perch, often hidden among the uppermost foliage of a tree. Males, who may have more than one mate, will actually fight to hold territories; these fights are sometimes bloody and even fatal. The nest is an open, woven cup of grass, leaves, roots, and animal hair. Painted Bunting often associates with Indigo Buntings in migratory flocks, and sometimes interbreeds with that closely-related species.

The two, separate breeding populations of Painted Bunting differ in their patterns of migration and molt. The western group migrates to northwestern Mexico in late summer. There birds molt into their winter plumage before migrating south in the fall to wintering grounds in southern Mexico. The eastern group migrates directly to the wintering grounds before molting. The molt-migration pattern of the western group is very unusual among songbirds. It requires a stopover molting area which has a mild climate and plenty of food.

Red-Winged Blackbird

Red-Winged Blackbirds eat seeds and grain and as well as insects. "Although they will also nest in hay fields, swamps, and other wet upland habitats, Red-winged Blackbirds are primarily associated with freshwater marshes. Males that have successfully claimed territories mate with 2 or 3 females; in drier regions, where marsh insects may be more plentiful, the usual ratio is 3 to 6 females per territorial male. Up to 15 females have been observed on the territory of a single male, but the territory owner may not necessarily father all of the young on his territory. Females sometimes mate with several partners during a season or even during a single nesting attempt. Males don't breed until they are two years old, and they must secure and defend a territory to mate successfully." Excerpt from Red-winged Blackbird on the Cornell Lab of Ornithology web site. This is a great site for information.

Red-Winged Blackbird

Margaret V.Doran

The smoky haze drifting upward through the trees

proved to be fog, raising its curtain to admit the day

and although it was lighter, through my window

the sun itself could not pierce the low cloud cover

that eclipsed the tops of the snow-crowned mountains

and another day began,

caught somewhere between winter and spring

when everything is cold, damp and muddy

and the wind offers no surcease

The blackbirds and starlings that wintered-over

settled thick upon the bent and twisted

ancient blackberry canes

yet when they raised their black cloud

I saw a flash of red upon an ebon wing

he had returned; my harbinger of spring

Red Wing Black Bird Song

The Red Winged Black Birds Single Note

Blue Jay

Blue Jay's are fairly common birds. They prefer evergreen and pine forests but can be found everywhere. They are 9 to 12 inches long. They are very aggressive and noisy birds and will drive other birds away from their territories. They will hide food for the winter. They eat fruits, nuts, seeds, insects, mice, frogs and small birds and eggs from other nests. Blue Jay populations have been declining as forests and woodlands decline. One of their main sourse of foods is the oak tree and it's decline has had an impact on them.

Click on the link to

A Blue Jay's call

Black and White Warbler

The Black and White Warbler summers in Canada and the Eastern U.S. It winters from Florida to Venezuela and Colombia. This bird is distinctive as no other black and white bird creeps along tree trunks and branches. It eats Caterpillars, adult insects, and spiders.

This is it. This is all I was able to get of the Black & White Warbler. These birds are tough. They move quickly and always manage to hide in the leaves and brush.

This bird winters in Florida so I will have to wait until cooler weather to get another shot at filming one.

Pine Warblers

Unstreaked olive above with yellow throat and breast, faint streaking below, white belly, inconspicuous eye-stripe, two white wing bars. Female similar but duller. The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds.

Breeds in southern Canada, the eastern half of the United States, and in the Bahamas. In winter, their range shifts outward into the southern United States and northeastern Mexico. In Florida, Pine Warblers are common residents. Florida has 2 breeding subspecies: D. p. pinus in the Panhandle and D. p. florida in the peninsula.

We're guessing this is a Pine Warbler because of it's wing bars but at the same time it looks very much like the Palm Warbler in a dullish white phase.

Pine Warbler

All the Warblers are difficult to film as they dart in and around the underbrush. I was lucky to catch this one at the edge of the marsh.

Palm Warblers

Olive-drab, streaked, ground-feeding warbler with bright olive rump, bright yellow undertail and distinctive habit of wagging its tail. Underparts vary from yellow to dull whitish, depending on age and geography.

Winters in Florida and breeds in Canada. They are often the first birds to arrive back in Canada in the spring. It also nests on the ground which is unusual among warblers.

Yellow Rumped Warbler

Yellow Rumped Warbler's is about 5 to 6 inches long. Yellow rumped Warbler's eat beetles, insects, farvae, flies, mosquitoes, gnats, spiders and aphids. They breed in Canada, Alaska and the western US and winters in the southern US down to Central America. In winter it feeds on fruits and berries. They like berries from the wax myrtle and poison ivy plant. The Yellow Rumped Warbler is one of the most common warblers seen and is very important as it eats many harmful insects.

These birds were photographed at different dates and locations; one in the spring and one in the fall. Odd how they were both caught with their wings held down. Is this the usual way for them to perch or are they displaying that cute little rump?

Yellow Throat Warbler

This bird is a Southeastern warbler and prefers pine woodlands. It eats insects and spiders. Forages by creeping along tree branches, probing into cracks, crevices, bundles of pine needles, and Spanish moss. It is believed that this bird is expanding it's range north.

Yellow Throat Warber

This bird prefers the high tops of trees. Finding one near the ground was a treat but like all of these quick little birds it was difficult to get a good video of it as it flickered through the underbrush.

Black-Throated Blue Warbler

These birds are 5 to 5 1/2 inches. Clean-cut with upper parts blue-gray, throat and sides are black. The belly is white. They have a white wing spot that is not always visible. The Black-Throated Bue Warbler lives in the northern U.S./Canadian border from northern Minnesoda to New York and across the southern half of this range in Canada. It winters in the Gulf states and the Greater Antilles. This bird is said to the the tamest and most trusting of the warblers. If you move very slowly they may be approached to within a few feet.

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

A tiny, long-tailed bird of deciduous forests and scrublands, the Blue-gray Gnatcatcher makes itself known by its soft but emphatic "spee" calls and its constant motion. By flicking its white-edged tail from side to side, the gnatcatcher may scare up hiding insects. Adults are blue-grey on the upperparts with white underparts and have a long slender bill, long black tail and an angry black unibrow. They have a white eye ring. These birds migrate to the southern United States, Mexico, northern Central America-(Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras), Cuba, Bahamas, Turks and Caicos Islands, and the Cayman Islands. They forage actively in trees or shrubs, mainly eating insects, insect eggs and spiders. They may hover over foliage, or fly to catch insects in flight. The tail is often held upright while defending territory or searching for food. The Blue-gray Gnatcatcher is the northernmost-occurring species of gnatcatcher, and the only truly migratory one. Most members of its genus are resident in the Neotropics. The soft, rambling song of the Blue-gray Gnatcatcher usually contains some mimicked songs of other bird species.

Red-Bellied Woodpecker

According to The Red-Bellied Woodpecker is "a common

woodpecker over much of the South, the Red-bellied is scarcer farther

north but has expanded its breeding range northward in recent decades.

Like most woodpeckers, it is beneficial, consuming large numbers of

wood-boring beetles as well as grasshoppers, ants, and other insect

pests. It also feeds on acorns, beechnuts, and wild fruits. It is one of

the woodpeckers that habitually stores food. I have watched these

woodpeckers obtain some food I have tossed out, fly up to a high

broken tree stump and try to fit the food into different crevices of

the dead tree.

Downy Woodpecker

According to The Animal Diversity Web Downy woodpeckers are smallest woodpeckers native to North America at about 6 1/2 inches long. They are found throughout North America, from southeastern Alaska east to Newfoundland, extending south to southern California and Florida. They usually do not migrate. During the winter male and female Downy Woodpeckers forage for food differently. Males tend to feed in the tops of the trees while females feed lower down in the middle and lower sections of trees. Downy Woodpeckers are often confussed with Hairy Woodpeckers. One way to tell the difference, besides the Downy being small, is that the Downy has a beak shorter than it's head whereas the Hairy Woodpeckers beak is the same length or longer than it's head.

Downy Woodpecker

A female Downy Woodpecker. The sound got my attention so I looked for the source and found her hiding in the leaves of the tree. A short while later she flew to a sable palm. No, my camera isn't tilted, she is.

Click on the links to hear

A Red Headed Woodpecker call

If you hear this sound the the Woodpecker isn't far away.

A Red Headed Woodpecker drumming

Woodpeckers "drum" on wood to announce their territory.

The speed tells you it's a smaller woodpecker. I saw this one drumming so know which woodpecker was drumming. The Pileated Woodpecker drums as well but at a much slower pace.

Pileated Woodpecker

The Pileated Woodpecker is 15 inches large. These are large distinctive birds. The pileated woodpecker lives in Canada from British Columbia east to Nova Scotia. It can be found in most areas of the eastern United States.The pileated woodpecker eats insects, fruits and nuts. A large part of its diet is made up of carpenter ants and beetle larvae. It uses its sharp bill to pull bark off a tree to expose ant colonies. It uses its long, sticky tongue to poke into holes and drag out the ants. It also digs out large rectangular holes in trees to create roosting and nesting spots and to expose insects!

American Redstart

The American Redstart visits Florida as it migrates between it's South American winter ground to it's midwestern and northen summer grounds in the U.S. and Canada. It eats insects and some fruits. It'll flash it's wings and tail to startle insect prey. Like the Cardinal it's not easy to see or catch a photo of it in the thick trees. The photo we have is blured and dark but you can see this Redstart has caught a dragonfly. The Audubon Society field Guide to North American Birds says that the Redstart's song is five or six high-pitched notes or two-note phrases, ending with an upward or downward inflection. Like: "chewy-chewy-chewy, chew-chew-chew"

Black Hooded Parakeet

The Black Hooded Parakeet is an introduced bird.

They are not yet known to be breeding but will

probably be the next exotic bird species to become

widely established in Florida. This bird is native to

Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay , and Argentina. You can

find the Black Hooded Parakeet in both urban areas

and in native pinelands. They feed on palm fruits

and pine seeds and nest in tree cavities.

Boat Tailed Grackle

Males are 16" to 17" tall with females a little smaller at 12" to 13". The Common Grackle is smaller and the female lacks the paler breast. It's sound is a harsh jeeb-jeeb-jeeb without whistles and clucks. This bird was thought to be a variation of the Great-Tailed Grackle until it was discovered that they don't interbreed.

American Crow

Crows are very common birds that are completely black and reach the size of 16 to 21 inches.Crows gather in large numbers in winter to sleep in communal roosts. Young crows do not breed until they are 2 years old and often not until they are 4 or more years old. They stay with the family and help raise the young that follow so a family may include several generations. They are wide spread over the US and have a breeding range covering nearly all of canada. They can be found nearly everywhere except in the very far north of canada and in the deserts of the US. Crows have been the hardest hit from the West Nile virus and their loss in some areas have been severe. They need a variety of habitats including open fields for feeding and scattered trees for roosting. They are omnivorous and eat waste grain, earthworms, insects, carrion, garbage, seeds, amphibians, reptiles, mice, fruit, bird eggs and nestlings.

Click on the link to hear

The call of a Crow

Northern Cardinal

This is a favorite bird of many people and is the state bird of 7 states. Cardinals are very territorial birds. Males will fight anything that comes into it's area, including it's reflection in car mirrors and windows. Mated birds will share song phrases. Young cardinals look a lot like the female bird but have a dark bill. Cardinals are found in lightly wooded areas with open areas, such as parks. Though their number and range have increased in the last 200 years they are becoming a 'species of special concern' in California.

Click on the link to hear

A Cardinal's song

The Cardinals songs vary. The one you hear will not sound exactly like this one. Cardinals, both male and female, will also make a short sharp chipping chirp when they feel that something should not be in their territory.

Here's a neat trick. You can actually call a Cardinal close to you by making a call as close to the Cardinals call as possible. Cardinals are very territorial and, as all calls are slightly different, the local Cardinal will think you're another one and come in to take a look at you.

I've called Cardinals in so my husband can shoot a photo of it. If you're patient and quiet after calling a Cardinal in the rest of the birds will start to show up.

Eurasian Collared-Dove & Mourning Dove

According to this bird was "originally a Mideastern species, the Eurasian Collared-Dove has extended its range dramatically into western Europe since about 1930. It was inadvertently released in the Bahamas in the 1970s then spread to South Florida, probably by natural means, in the late 1970s or early 1980s. Florida birds were initially mistaken for feral populations of Ringed Turtle-Dove (S. risora), a domestic cage bird with no natural populations anywhere in the world. This mistake was soon corrected, and the species was officially recognized in the U.S. in the 1990s." It looks like this bird is fast going the way the European Starling did with way too many birds, no real predators to keep populations down and becoming a pest.

Attacting birds to your yard.

Lesser known food attractions

Birdwatchers Digest has some interesting ideas for attracting birds.

* Meat Scraps and freezer-burned meat.

* Grape Jelly: Favored by woodpeckers, orioles, tanagers, and others. Offer a spoonful in a shallow dish or jar lid.

* Eggshells: Rinse egg shells out in the sink, place them in a shallow pan and bake in the oven at 250 degrees for 20 minutes. This cleaning and baking eliminates the chance that wild birds will be exposed to harmful bacteria from domestic chickens. We crush them on the front sidewalk and the birds nibble at the pieces all winter long.

* GritGrit (small stones, sand, & eggshells) resides in birds gizzards and help to speed the processing of food. A sand pile will also attract birds for sand baths.

* Pumpkin or Melon Seeds: Dry them in the oven, and spread them out on a large platform feeder.

* Mealworms

* Compost pile items include melon rinds and spaghetti.

In addition to Birdwatchers Digests suggestions I have also used dog food. The birds pick up the food, fly to the birdbath, drop the dog food in the water and wait for it to crumble and float. They eat this like it's a buffet.

Another tip from Birdwatchers Digest:

Don't feed birds lots of stale bread. The birds may seem to love your stale bread, but bread to a hungry bird is like popcorn is to a hungry human: Lots of filler, but no real nutritional value. Bread also attracts mostly starlings and house sparrows. Solution: Offer apples, oranges, meat scraps, rendered suet, mealworms, or other nutritional foods instead.

Did you enjoy this article? Do you have any questions, ideas or suggestions? Let us hear about your birding adventures!

Birding Notebook

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    • Charmcrazey profile image

      Wanda Fitzgerald 

      7 years ago from Central Florida

      I've lived in Florida all my life and have seen and heard many of these beautiful birds. You've done an amazing job capturing them in sight and sound.

    • Sensitive Fern profile image

      Sensitive Fern 

      7 years ago

      I didn't know that birds used leaves with pesticide on them to repel insects in their nests. It's ironic to me that you saw purple martins doing this as the DDT they used to spray to kill mosquitoes in the 1960s here in Iowa almost wiped them out. *Blessed and listed on my Creative Squid blog.

    • annieangel1 profile image


      7 years ago from Yorkshire, England

      great lens - thumbs up and lensrolled to my wild bird lenses

    • wilddove6 profile image


      8 years ago

      Fantastic lens!

      My husband is visiting Florida from Canada in a couple of months time for business. We're both birders and I'm jealous as heck!

      Just wanted to see what birds he might encounter.

    • mbgphoto profile image

      Mary Beth Granger 

      9 years ago from O'Fallon, Missouri, USA

      Enjoyable lens!

    • K Linda profile image

      K Linda 

      9 years ago

      Excellent lens about the songbirds of Florida. Very well done. 5*'s, a fav and lensroll to my mockingbird lens.

    • naturegirl7s profile image

      Yvonne L B 

      9 years ago from Covington, LA

      Beautiful lens. Welcome to the Naturally Native Squids group. Don't forget to add your lens link to the appropriate plexo and vote for it.

    • AlwaysLearning LM profile image

      AlwaysLearning LM 

      9 years ago

      Great lens! I just love to listen to the birds in the morning and I sure miss that during the winter months here in MN.

    • profile image


      9 years ago

      Wonderful page.


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