Searching for Birds

Winter months are dreary in New York City, but perhaps none so much as January 2021. Cold air and gray clouds blew between the skyscrapers as the world below remained stuck in the pandemic’s icy grip.

But that month, a small corner of the city briefly came alive when a majestic Snowy Owl appeared in Central Park. Bird fanatics and dozens of other regular New Yorkers ventured out of their homes, hoping to catch a glimpse.

As word spread, so, too, did people’s curiosity. In New York City, the term Snowy Owl spiked about ninefold on Google Trends^[*] as residents wanted to learn about the species — and how one ended up in their backyard. New York’s Snowy Owl was as much a story about one special bird as the humans who took notice of it.

Data from Google searches can show us which birds out of roughly 700 North American and Hawaiian species capture our attention and why. As you scroll, you’ll follow a story of these birds — or, more precisely, our interest in these birds — through several interactive graphics. Here’s what the trends tell us about our relationship with our feathered friends.

I Am Not a Bird Person

It’s intimidating how many birds there are. Not in the Hitchcock sense, but in an overwhelming and awe-inspiring sense. If you’ve ever cracked open a birding guidebook, you know the feeling. Page after page will show a staggering variety of shapes and colors.

If you don’t consider yourself a “bird person,” you still know about birds. When you see an unfamiliar species, you can still describe it in familiar terms. A water bird like a loon or a grebe might seem like a “duck” while a falcon might be described as a “hawk.” These shortcuts show recognition of similar shapes, environments and behaviors — even though all belong to distinct families. That’s why general bird terms, like duck or hawk or owl or parrot tend to be Googled more than individual species names.

Within the nest below you can find the most-Googled birds in the US over the last five years, based on their general “type.” 🪺

Ornithologists at Cornell University know that humans use clues to identify birds, which is why their online guide, All About Birds, is searchable by location, keywords, and even bird shape. One feature of the All About Birds database is that it groups some 700 North American birds into a more manageable list of 76 general “type” categories. These categories are the basis for the Google search terms shown in the nest. The ranks are based on five years of search history on the US national and state levels.

Countrywide, two birds of prey — hawk and eagle — get the most searches. They are also the top-searched birds in a dozen states each. Duck comes in third nationally, but it has the broadest state-level interest, taking the top spot in 17 states.

For many people, bird identification doesn’t stretch much beyond basic bird names. But being a “birdwatcher” or a “birder” or a “bird person” doesn’t require encyclopedic knowledge of birds. In fact, it doesn’t require much of anything. There’s a brand of birdwatching that fosters a gentle approach of simply noticing and observing birds for nothing other than your own joy of doing so — no deeper knowledge or superzoom cameras required.

Over the last decade, birdwatching has become a more inclusive activity, with birding organizations popping up around the country to cater to people of all backgrounds and abilities. The mission of these groups is to cultivate communities of birders who don’t necessarily identify with the hard-core, rare-bird-chasing crowd.

But once you do start noticing birds, there’s a good chance you’ll see one that changes everything…

The Spark Bird

How do people go from identifying a common duck to a much more specific Green-winged Teal? The first step is caring to know its name in the first place. Often, this happens after a particular encounter with a very special bird — a so-called “spark bird.”

A spark bird is the catalyst to wanting to discover more. Every person’s spark bird is different because people are moved by birds in different ways. Sometimes it’s the flash of color or striking patterns of the feathers. Other times it’s a mesmerizing behavior or an unexpectedly close encounter. But whatever the reason, a spark bird is the gateway to identifying and learning about other birds. Here’s one way to think about that process:

What piques our interest? Well, we frequently Google species of hawks, owls, and other raptors. We also can’t get enough of the woodpeckers. These birds have abilities and behaviors that captivate us.

Grouping birds, either by shape or family, is both an art and a science. Whether a species belongs more to one group than another can be a matter of debate.

We also search for species of game birds and ducks, particularly the hunting breeds like the Northern Pintail and the Wood Duck. We love Northern Cardinals and Blue Jays, with their eye-catching shades of reds and blues. And the elegant silhouettes of Great Egrets and Great Blue Herons.

On the other hand, we don’t tend to search for species of gulls, terns, and seabirds. Perhaps this is because more than half of the US population doesn’t live near a shore.

Furthermore, seabirds can be tricky to distinguish, so we are less likely to search for their species name and instead fall back on general labels like seagull. The same case could be made for the myriad of smallish brownish birds like sparrows, warblers, and chickadees.

Find a Bird, Share a Bird

The more effort you put into researching a bird’s name, the more satisfying when you finally identify it.

But the digital age is all about instant gratification. Social media allows us to share photos of birds and tap into online communities for identification help. A growing number of apps including Merlin Bird ID (created by Cornell Lab), iNaturalist, and Birda use AI to instantly identify birds from photos, descriptions or by their song alone.

Digital tools don’t just benefit us; they also benefit the birds. The eBird database, run by Cornell Lab, has been recognized as the largest citizen science birdwatching project in the world, surpassing 1 billion bird observations in 2021. When you enter your bird sighting into the eBird app, you contribute to an enormous repository of information about population trends, migration patterns, and habitat use, which can help scientists identify threats to the birds and shape conservation policy. In similar fashion, Perch 2.0, which uses Google's bird identification model, identifies sounds in nature to map populations of endangered Hawaiian birds.

What We See — and What We Don’t

Snowy Owls are rare. The 15,000 that exist in North America don’t often visit the lower 48 states, and when they do, they prefer the coldest places. They prefer Alaska and Canada, where they migrate and breed. On the rarest of occasions, one may end up in Central Park. Snowy Owls are the 465th most observed species on eBird and they rank 554th for total North American population^[*].

Despite their obscurity, Snowy Owl is the 20th most Googled bird species in the US. Other elusive birds, particularly owls like the Great Horned Owl and the American Barn Owl, also make the top-20.

The chart below shows the top 21 most-searched birds in the US (middle column) compared with eBird observations (left) and North American populations (right).

The chart indicates that what we spot in the wild is also what we tend to Google: About half of the species on the eBird observation list are also on the Google search list.

Only the American Crow, the number 4 on eBird's list, doesn’t register on Google Trends. This is likely due to most people searching simply for the more general term crow instead of its species name.

At the same time, only four of the birds on the most populous list, along the right, are most Googled. This is in part because many small bird species like the Blue-gray Gnatcatcher and the Savannah Sparrow are abundant but well hidden in their protected habitats, away from our eyes — and our curious minds. In fact, out of the top 5 most populous birds in North America, 3 of them do not even register on Google Trends. And we're talking about hundreds of millions of the little feathery balls flying across our skies!

Although we do google some rare and elusive birds like the owls, the rarest of the birds fail to grab our attention. Close to 40% of North America’s migratory species are at risk of extinction, with over 200 species needing urgent conservation, according to the American Bird Conservancy. We don’t Google them because they exist on the fringes of our world, even though these birds are most in need of our attention.

Species We Know and Love

The Bald Eagle is one species that got our attention just in the nick of time. In the mid 1900s, the species was nearly wiped out by habitat destruction and DDT insecticide poisoning. The species had a few things working in its favor: it is the national bird of the US and is widely beloved for its symbolism. Through publicity and conservation efforts, Bald Eagles became an icon of the environmental movement and today Bald Eagle [●] is the top-searched bird nationally and also in 26 US states. (In the remaining states, it’s the second or third-most searched bird — except Hawaii, the only state where it doesn’t live in the wild.)

Another bird species that many Americans know and love is the Northern Cardinal. Northern Cardinal [●] is the second-most searched species in the US and the top-searched species in 16 states. Its popularity no doubt stems from the males’ bright red plumage and its frequent appearances in gardens and feeders. It ranks highly in just about every state east of the Rockies, but doesn’t crack the top-10 in the western states that are outside its habitat range.

Some species, such as the Blue Jay [●] and American Robin [●] are highly ranked in many states (which is why they are the third and fourth most-searched bird nationally) but neither managed to take the top spot in any state.

The map below shows the most-searched bird by state. Hover overSelect a state to see its top 10.

State-level rankings give a glimpse into what draws humans to search different birds.

In Louisiana and Mississippi, Mallard [●] and Wood Duck are in the top 5, likely because duck hunting is such a popular pastime in those states’ extensive marshlands.

While Sandhill Crane [●] takes the top spot in Nebraska; each spring, up to 600,000 Sandhill Cranes gather in Nebraska’s North Platte River valley^[*] — the largest such gathering in the world — resting and feeding for about six weeks before migrating north.

Google Trends shows the frequency of search terms based on their meaning. For instance, some bird terms (Cardinals, Orioles, Falcons, Eagles, Ducks, Blue Jays, etc.) are also sports team names, but Google generally distinguishes between the helmeted kind and the feathered kind. However, there are exceptions, like Cooper's Hawk.

Cooper’s Hawk [●], on the other hand, ranks highly in a few states that also happen to have a restaurant chain of the same name. This popularity is likely a combination of searches for the bird, but probably mostly for the establishment.

Paying Attention

Long before social media feeds and birding apps, birders relied on truly analog systems to chase the unexpected. Rare bird hotlines — phone numbers run by local Audubon chapters or birding clubs — catered to enthusiasts hungry for news of a vagrant warbler or storm-swept gannet. You called in, listened to a recorded message, and, if you were lucky, heard that something cool had touched down nearby.

Today, news of a rare sighting travels very differently. An alert on a WhatsApp group or social media or eBird can ignite a frenzy within minutes, drawing crowds to parks and street corners with binoculars in hand. Which is exactly what happened when the Snowy Owl appeared in New York City. But people who had never used a field guide suddenly wanted to know everything about this Arctic wanderer. Rare bird alerts like this routinely produce Google search spikes that mirror the rush of discovery.

Beyond these sudden bursts, our interest in birds follows a seasonal rhythm, as shown in the below chart of the last ten years.

[ In case not all the years between 2016 - 2025 are visible, you can move the line chart left and right to see more years. ]

Whatever month or season it is, birds are everywhere, from the docile Mourning Doves in the grass to the predatory Peregrine Falcons on the cliffsides. Yet we often don’t even notice them, let alone search for them on Google or in field guides, or on birding apps. Most of the time, they fade into the background.

There are many ways you can bring birds into focus into you own life, by, for instance, joining a birding community, downloading an identification app, or even cracking open a field guide. But the easiest way is simply to pay attention. Once you do, birds have a way of giving back, instilling us with joy, wonder, surprise, and curiosity, as the Snowy Owl did on that cold New York day.