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What Are Boreal Birds Anyway?
 The Boreal Forest hosts an incredible diversity of breeding birds, with more than 300 species regularly breeding in the region. These Boreal birds include year-round residents like Boreal Chickadee and Gray Jay; nomadic breeders such as White-winged Crossbill and Pine Siskin; and warblers, sparrows, flycatchers, and other migratory species that breed in the Boreal each summer and then migrate southward throughout much of the Western Hemisphere.
Warbler Wonderland
 The Boreal Forest is perhaps best known as the summer home for many of North America’s most spectacular breeding birds – the wood warblers. Species like Palm, Tennessee, Connecticut, Blackpoll, Cape May, and Bay-breasted warblers are all well-known Boreal breeders, but the Boreal also supports large populations of warblers like Ovenbird, Yellow Warbler, and American Redstart that are not typically associated with the region. Altogether the Boreal Forest, which covers 26% of Canada and the U.S., supports 40% or more of the breeding populations of 21 warbler species.
North America's Other Duck Factory
 No group of birds is more reliant on the Boreal Forest for nesting than waterfowl. Nearly 40% of all of North America’s ducks, geese, and swans breed in the Boreal’s many wetlands. Bufflehead, White-winged Scoter, Black Scoter, Surf Scoter, and Common Goldeneye breed almost entirely in the Boreal, where more than 80% of their nesting populations are found. The Boreal Forest is also home to large numbers of dabbling ducks, including more than half of the breeding populations of American Wigeon, Green-winged Teal, and American Black Duck.
Surprising Spot for Shorebirds
 The Boreal Forest might sound like an unlikely spot for shorebirds, but the myriad wetlands of the region support nearly one-third of all nesting shorebirds in North America. Short-billed Dowitchers, with 97% of their global population nesting in the Boreal, breed virtually nowhere else on earth. All told, ten shorebird species, including the scarce Hudsonian Godwit, have at least half of their North American breeding populations in the Boreal.
Amazing Diversity
 Nearly one hundred species depend on the Boreal Forest as a vitally important breeding ground that supports more than half of their North American populations. This list of birds includes the extremely rare (Whooping Crane) and the abundant (Dark-eyed Junco), the enormous (Trumpeter Swan) and the diminutive (Ruby-crowned Kinglet), the familiar (Common Loon) and the unknown (Le Conte’s Sparrow), and the mundane (Herring Gull) and the spectacular (Great Gray Owl).
Learn More About Boreal Birds
Visit the Boreal Songbird Initiative’s Boreal Bird Guide for in-depth information about Boreal birds including migration maps. While you're there, read a summary of North America’s Bird Nursery – the Boreal Forest.
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