Montana Birds: Pictures And Bird Identification Tips

Western Meadowlark

Without digging too deep into Montana topography and climate, a simple map view can divide the state into a Rocky Mountain western section and a grasslands eastern section. Montana birds generally divide into those two categories, with of course a variety of common back yard feeder birds and insectivores included in the mix. Taken together they constitute the close to 450 species on the Montana birds checklist.

In grasslands and plains area, tourists would do well to keep their eyes rolling from the ground to the sky. Ground nesters, shrub nesters and tree nesters all find a home in the area.

Montana honors its grassland birds starting with the state bird, the Western Meadowlark.

picture of a Wilson's Phalarope
Add a bit of detail to the Montana map and the intricate Montana river system comes into view. The riparian areas are a great invitation to a group of perhaps surprising bird species, the shorebirds. Montana birds checklist, for example, documents the presence of over forty shorebird species, including about one dozen breeding species such as killdeer, American avocet, spotted sandpiper, long-billed curlew and the pictured Wilson’s phalarope. During spring, they can commonly be seen im many areas.