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List of birds of Missouri facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts
Eastern Bluebird-27527-2
The eastern bluebird is the state bird of Missouri.

Welcome to the amazing world of birds in Missouri! This list tells you about all the different kinds of birds that have been seen and recorded in the state. As of July 2021, there are 437 different bird species on the official list.

Some birds are very common, while others are quite rare. Here's what some special codes next to a bird's name mean:

  • (A) Accidental: This bird has only been seen 1 to 4 times in Missouri. It's a rare visitor!
  • (C) Casual: This bird has been seen 5 to 15 times. It visits sometimes, but not often.
  • (I) Introduced: Humans brought this bird to North America, and it now lives here.
  • (E) Extinct: This bird no longer exists anywhere in the world. It's gone forever.
  • (Ex) Extirpated: This bird no longer lives in Missouri, but you can still find it in other places.
  • (P) Provisional: There's some evidence this bird was seen, but it's not fully confirmed yet.

Contents

Ducks, Geese, and Waterfowl: Amazing Swimmers

Order: Anseriformes   Family: Anatidae

Blackduck
American black duck
Bucephala-albeola-007
Bufflehead

This family includes all the ducks, geese, and swans you might see. These birds are super good at living in water. They have webbed feet to help them swim and special feathers that shed water easily. Their beaks are often flat, which helps them find food in the water.

New World Quail: Small Ground Birds

Order: Galliformes   Family: Odontophoridae

New World quails are small, round birds that live on the ground. They look a bit like the quails from other parts of the world, but they are not closely related.

Pheasants, Grouse, and Allies: Game Birds

Order: Galliformes   Family: Phasianidae

This family includes pheasants, grouse, turkeys, and some quails. They are ground-dwelling birds that vary in size. Many of these birds are hunted for sport or raised for food. They usually have broad, short wings.

Flamingos: Pink Wading Birds

Order: Phoenicopteriformes   Family: Phoenicopteridae

Flamingos are tall, social birds that wade in water. They are known for their pink feathers and unique beaks, which they use upside-down to filter tiny plants and animals from the water.

Grebes: Diving Experts

Order: Podicipediformes   Family: Podicipedidae

Podilymbus-podiceps-001
Pied-billed grebe

Grebes are small to medium-sized birds that dive in freshwater. They have special lobed toes that make them excellent swimmers and divers. However, because their feet are set far back on their bodies, they are quite clumsy on land.

Pigeons and Doves: Common Birds

Order: Columbiformes   Family: Columbidae

Pigeons and doves are birds with sturdy bodies, short necks, and small, thin beaks. You can often see them in cities and towns.

Cuckoos: Long-tailed Birds

Order: Cuculiformes   Family: Cuculidae

This family includes cuckoos, roadrunners, and anis. These birds come in different sizes, but they all have slender bodies, long tails, and strong legs.

Nightjars and Allies: Nighttime Hunters

Order: Caprimulgiformes   Family: Caprimulgidae

Nightjars are medium-sized birds that are active at night. They usually build their nests on the ground. They have long wings, short legs, and very small beaks. Their soft feathers are colored to help them blend in with tree bark or leaves.

Swifts: Always Flying

Order: Apodiformes   Family: Apodidae

Swifts are small birds that spend most of their lives flying. They have very short legs and almost never land on the ground. Instead, they perch on vertical surfaces. Many swifts have long, swept-back wings that look like a crescent moon.

Hummingbirds: Tiny Hovering Jewels

Order: Apodiformes   Family: Trochilidae

Hummingbirds are tiny birds famous for hovering in the air. They can flap their wings incredibly fast, and they are the only birds that can fly backward!

Rails, Gallinules, and Coots: Shy Water Birds

Order: Gruiformes   Family: Rallidae

VirginiaRail23
Virginia rail

This is a large family of small to medium-sized birds like rails, crakes, coots, and gallinules. They often live in thick plants near lakes, swamps, or rivers. They are usually shy and hard to spot. Most have strong legs and long toes, which help them walk on soft, uneven ground. They are not very strong fliers.

Limpkin: A Unique Wader

Order: Gruiformes   Family: Aramidae

The limpkin is a unique bird that looks like a large rail. It's actually more closely related to cranes.

Cranes: Tall and Graceful

Order: Gruiformes   Family: Gruidae

Cranes are large birds with long legs and long necks. When they fly, their necks are stretched out, which is different from herons. Many cranes have special, noisy dances they do when they are trying to find a mate.

Stilts and Avocets: Long-Legged Waders

Order: Charadriiformes   Family: Recurvirostridae

This family includes avocets and stilts. Avocets have long legs and long, upward-curving beaks. Stilts have extremely long legs and long, thin, straight beaks. They are all large wading birds.

Plovers and Lapwings: Shoreline Birds

Order: Charadriiformes   Family: Charadriidae

This family includes plovers, dotterels, and lapwings. They are small to medium-sized birds with compact bodies, short thick necks, and long, pointed wings. You can find them in open areas all over the world, especially near water.

Sandpipers and Allies: Diverse Shorebirds

Order: Charadriiformes   Family: Scolopacidae

MarbledGodwit23
Marbled godwit
Actitis-macularia-005
Spotted sandpiper

Scolopacidae is a large family of shorebirds, including sandpipers, curlews, godwits, and snipes. Most of these birds eat small bugs they find in mud or soil. Different lengths of legs and beaks allow many species to feed in the same areas without competing for food.

Skuas and Jaegers: Strong Fliers

Order: Charadriiformes   Family: Stercorariidae

Skuas and jaegers are medium to large birds, often gray or brown. They look like large, dark gulls but have a fleshy area above their upper beak. They are strong, acrobatic fliers.

Gulls, Terns, and Skimmers: Coastal Birds

Order: Charadriiformes   Family: Laridae

Ring-bill
Ring-billed gull
Forster Tern
Forster's tern

This family includes gulls, terns, and skimmers. They are medium to large seabirds, usually gray or white with black markings. They have strong, long beaks and webbed feet.

Loons: Diving Water Birds

Order: Gaviiformes   Family: Gaviidae

Commonloonudfs
Common loon

Loons are aquatic birds, about the size of a large duck. They are mostly gray or black with spear-shaped beaks. Loons are excellent swimmers and good fliers, but they are very awkward on land because their legs are at the back of their bodies.

Northern Storm-Petrels: Small Seabirds

Order: Procellariiformes   Family: Hydrobatidae

Storm-petrels are the smallest seabirds. They are related to petrels and eat tiny crustaceans and small fish from the water's surface, often while hovering. Their flight is fluttery, sometimes like a bat.

Storks: Large Wading Birds

Order: Ciconiiformes   Family: Ciconiidae

Storks are large, heavy birds with long legs, long necks, and strong beaks. They have wide wingspans and are often found wading in water. Unlike herons, storks cannot make sounds because they lack a voice box.

Frigatebirds: Aerial Masters

Order: Suliformes   Family: Fregatidae

Frigatebirds are large seabirds that live over tropical oceans. They are mostly black or black and white, with long wings and deeply forked tails. Males have colorful throat pouches that they can inflate. They are amazing fliers and can stay in the air for more than a week!

Boobies and Gannets: Plunge Divers

Order: Suliformes   Family: Sulidae

This family includes gannets and boobies. Both are medium-large seabirds that live near coasts. They dive headfirst into the water to catch fish.

Anhingas: Snake-like Swimmers

Order: Suliformes   Family: Anhingidae

Anhingas are water birds that look like cormorants, but they have very long necks and straight beaks. They eat fish and often swim with only their long necks above the water, looking like a snake.

Cormorants and Shags: Dark Water Birds

Order: Suliformes   Family: Phalacrocoracidae

Cormorants are medium to large aquatic birds, usually with dark feathers and colorful skin around their faces. Their beaks are long, thin, and hooked. They have four webbed toes.

Pelicans: Pouch Under the Beak

Order: Pelecaniformes   Family: Pelecanidae

Pelicans are very large water birds with a special pouch under their beak, which they use to scoop up fish. Like other birds in their group, they have four webbed toes.

Herons, Egrets, and Bitterns: Wading Birds

Order: Pelecaniformes   Family: Ardeidae

Nycticorax-nycticorax-004
Black-crowned night-heron

This family includes herons, egrets, and bitterns. Herons and egrets are medium to large wading birds with long necks and legs. Bitterns are usually shorter-necked and more secretive. When these birds fly, they pull their necks back, which is different from storks.

Ibises and Spoonbills: Unique Beaks

Order: Pelecaniformes   Family: Threskiornithidae

White-faced Ibis
White-faced ibis

This family includes ibises and spoonbills. They have long, wide wings and long bodies with long legs. Ibises have long, downward-curving beaks, while spoonbills have straight beaks that are flattened at the end, like a spoon.

New World Vultures: Nature's Clean-up Crew

Order: Cathartiformes   Family: Cathartidae

New World vultures are not closely related to vultures from other parts of the world, but they look similar because they do the same job: they eat dead animals. Unlike other vultures that find food by sight, New World vultures have a great sense of smell to find carcasses.

Osprey: Fish-Eating Hunter

Order: Accipitriformes   Family: Pandionidae

The osprey is a bird of prey that eats fish. It has a very large, strong, hooked beak for tearing meat, strong legs, powerful claws, and excellent eyesight. It's the only bird in its family.

Hawks, Eagles, and Kites: Powerful Hunters

Order: Accipitriformes   Family: Accipitridae

Baldeagle-05jul2
Bald eagle

This family includes hawks, eagles, kites, and harriers. These birds of prey have very large, strong, hooked beaks for tearing meat from their prey. They also have strong legs, powerful claws, and sharp eyesight.

Barn-Owls: Heart-Shaped Faces

Order: Strigiformes   Family: Tytonidae

Barn-owls are medium to large owls with big heads and special heart-shaped faces. They have long, strong legs with powerful claws.

Owls: Nighttime Hunters

Order: Strigiformes   Family: Strigidae

Typical owls are solitary birds of prey that hunt at night. They have large eyes that face forward and good hearing. They have a hooked beak and a circle of feathers around each eye, called a facial disk.

Kingfishers: Big Heads, Short Tails

Order: Coraciiformes   Family: Alcedinidae

Kingfishers are medium-sized birds with large heads, long pointed beaks, short legs, and stubby tails. They are known for diving into water to catch fish.

Woodpeckers: Tree Tappers

Order: Piciformes   Family: Picidae

Woodpeckers are small to medium-sized birds with chisel-like beaks. They have short legs, stiff tails, and long tongues that help them catch insects. Many woodpeckers tap loudly on tree trunks with their beaks.

Falcons and Caracaras: Birds of Prey

Order: Falconiformes   Family: Falconidae

This family includes falcons and caracaras. They are birds of prey that hunt during the day. Unlike hawks, they use their beaks to kill their prey instead of their claws.

New World and African Parrots: Colorful and Curved Beaks

Order: Psittaciformes   Family: Psittacidae

Parrots are small to large birds with a special curved beak. They can move their upper beak slightly. All parrots have two toes pointing forward and two pointing backward on each foot. Most of the over 150 species in this family live in the Americas.

Tyrant Flycatchers: Insect Eaters

Order: Passeriformes   Family: Tyrannidae

Flycatcher-102a
Acadian flycatcher

Tyrant flycatchers are songbirds found across North and South America. They look a bit like flycatchers from other parts of the world, but they are stronger and have more powerful beaks. They mostly eat insects.

Vireos, Shrike-Babblers, and Erpornis: Greenish Songbirds

Order: Passeriformes   Family: Vireonidae

Vireos are small to medium-sized songbirds. They are usually greenish and look like wood-warblers, but they have heavier beaks.

Shrikes: Impaling Hunters

Order: Passeriformes   Family: Laniidae

Shrikes are songbirds known for catching other birds and small animals. They sometimes stick the uneaten parts of their prey on thorns. A shrike's beak is hooked, like a bird of prey.

Crows, Jays, and Magpies: Smart Birds

Order: Passeriformes   Family: Corvidae

This family includes crows, ravens, jays, and magpies. Corvids are larger than average songbirds, and some of the bigger species are very intelligent.

Tits, Chickadees, and Titmice: Small Woodland Birds

Order: Passeriformes   Family: Paridae

The Paridae family includes small, sturdy woodland birds with short, strong beaks. Some have crests on their heads. They are adaptable birds that eat both seeds and insects.

Larks: Ground Birds with Songs

Order: Passeriformes   Family: Alaudidae

Larks are small birds that live on the ground. They often have amazing songs and display flights. Most larks look quite plain. They eat insects and seeds.

Swallows: Aerial Feeders

Order: Passeriformes   Family: Hirundinidae

Swallows are songbirds that are great at catching food while flying. They have slender, streamlined bodies, long pointed wings, and short beaks with a wide opening. Their feet are made for perching, not walking.

Kinglets: Tiny Crowned Birds

Order: Passeriformes   Family: Regulidae

Kinglets are a small family of birds that look a bit like titmice. They are very tiny birds that eat insects. Adult kinglets have colorful crowns on their heads, which is how they got their name.

Waxwings: Silky Feathers and Red Tips

Order: Passeriformes   Family: Bombycillidae

Waxwings have soft, silky feathers and unique red tips on some of their wing feathers. These tips look like sealing wax. These birds live in northern forests and eat insects in summer and berries in winter.

Nuthatches: Head-First Climbers

Order: Passeriformes   Family: Sittidae

Nuthatches are small woodland birds. They have a special ability to climb down trees headfirst, which most other birds cannot do. Nuthatches have big heads, short tails, and strong beaks and feet.

Treecreepers: Bark Explorers

Order: Passeriformes   Family: Certhiidae

Treecreepers are small woodland birds that are brown on top and white underneath. They have thin, pointed, downward-curving beaks that they use to pull insects out of tree bark. They have stiff tail feathers, like woodpeckers, which help them support themselves on vertical trees.

Gnatcatchers: Delicate Insect Eaters

Order: Passeriformes   Family: Polioptilidae

These delicate birds look like Old World warblers. They move constantly through leaves, looking for insects. Gnatcatchers are mostly soft bluish-gray and have the long, sharp beak typical of insect-eating birds. Many have distinct black patterns on their heads and long, black-and-white tails that they often hold upright.

Wrens: Small and Loud Singers

Order: Passeriformes   Family: Troglodytidae

Wrens are small and often hard to see, but they have very loud songs. They have short wings and thin, downward-curved beaks. Several species often hold their tails straight up. All wrens eat insects.

Mockingbirds and Thrashers: Amazing Mimics

Order: Passeriformes   Family: Mimidae

This family includes thrashers, mockingbirds, and catbirds. These birds are famous for their singing, especially their amazing ability to copy the sounds of many other birds and outdoor noises. They usually have dull gray and brown feathers.

Starlings: Social Birds

Order: Passeriformes   Family: Sturnidae

Starlings are small to medium-sized songbirds with strong feet. They fly strongly and directly, and they often gather in large groups. They prefer open areas and eat insects and fruit. Their feathers are usually dark with a shiny, metallic look.

Thrushes and Allies: Ground Feeders with Songs

Order: Passeriformes   Family: Turdidae

Thrushes are a group of songbirds that are usually plump with soft feathers. They are small to medium-sized birds that eat insects or sometimes everything. They often feed on the ground. Many thrushes have beautiful songs.

Old World Sparrows: Small Seed Eaters

Order: Passeriformes   Family: Passeridae

Old World sparrows are small songbirds. They are generally small, plump, brownish or grayish birds with short tails and strong, short beaks. Sparrows eat seeds, but they also eat small insects.

Wagtails and Pipits: Ground-Feeding Insectivores

Order: Passeriformes   Family: Motacillidae

This family includes wagtails and pipits. They are small songbirds with medium to long tails. They are slender birds that eat insects on the ground in open areas.

Finches, Euphonias, and Allies: Seed-Eating Songbirds

Order: Passeriformes   Family: Fringillidae

Finches are songbirds that eat seeds. They are small to medium-sized and have strong beaks, usually shaped like a cone. All finches have twelve tail feathers and nine primary feathers. These birds fly with a bouncing motion, flapping and then gliding with closed wings. Most finches sing well.

Longspurs and Snow Buntings: Open Grassland Birds

Order: Passeriformes   Family: Calcariidae

Longspurs and snow buntings are a group of songbirds that were once thought to be New World sparrows. However, they are different in many ways and are usually found in open grassy areas.

New World Sparrows: Distinctive Head Patterns

Order: Passeriformes   Family: Passerellidae

Henslow's Sparrow (9009481848)
Henslow's sparrow

These birds were once part of another family, but in 2017, they got their own. Most of these species are called sparrows, but they are not closely related to the Old World sparrows. Many of them have special patterns on their heads.

Yellow-breasted Chat: A Unique Bird

Order: Passeriformes   Family: Icteriidae

This bird was once grouped with the wood-warblers, but experts weren't sure it truly belonged there. In 2017, it was given its very own family!

Troupials and Allies: Colorful New World Birds

Order: Passeriformes   Family: Icteridae

This group includes grackles, New World blackbirds, and New World orioles. They are small to medium-sized songbirds found only in the Americas. Many species are black, often with bright yellow, orange, or red colors.

New World Warblers: Small and Colorful

Order: Passeriformes   Family: Parulidae

Wood warblers are a group of small, often colorful songbirds found only in the Americas. Most live in trees, but some spend more time on the ground. Most birds in this family eat insects.

Cardinals and Allies: Strong-Billed Seed Eaters

Order: Passeriformes   Family: Cardinalidae

This family includes strong, seed-eating birds with powerful beaks. They usually live in open woodlands. The males and females often have different colored feathers.

See also

  • List of birds
  • Lists of birds by region
  • List of birds of North America
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List of birds of Missouri Facts for Kids. Kiddle Encyclopedia.