Backyard Birds Word Search

About this puzzle

These are birds of North American backyards and feeders — the ones you can watch from a kitchen window. The list includes year-round residents (cardinal, chickadee, blue jay, nuthatch), familiar songbirds (robin, wren, sparrow, finch, mockingbird), birds that arrive with the seasons (oriole, junco, hummingbird) and the starling, which was brought over from Europe.

The default layout is Medium on a 13×13 grid. Easy, Medium and Hard each use their own checked layout of the same words, and every one can be printed in standard or large print on US Letter or A4.

Word notes

Cardinal

The male is bright red and the female a warm brown with red tinges; unusually among songbirds, both sexes sing.

Chickadee

Named for its call, "chick-a-dee-dee-dee"; adding more "dee" notes can signal a more dangerous predator.

Woodpecker

Drums on trees to find insects and to signal its territory; special bones and muscles cushion its head from the impact.

Hummingbird

Can hover in place and even fly backward, its wings beating dozens of times a second.

Mockingbird

Known for copying the songs of other birds.

Nuthatch

Often seen walking headfirst down tree trunks.

Junco

A small gray sparrow sometimes called a “snowbird.”

Starling

European starlings were released in New York's Central Park in 1890 and have since spread across North America.

Try this after the puzzle

Keep a one-week tally: print the word list on its own and tick each bird you see or hear. For a class, link each bird to a feeder food — sunflower seeds for cardinals and chickadees, nectar for hummingbirds, fruit for orioles. Listening to recordings of three bird calls before the puzzle makes the names stick.

All 14 words

Robin · Cardinal · Blue Jay · Sparrow · Finch · Chickadee · Wren · Woodpecker · Hummingbird · Mockingbird · Nuthatch · Oriole · Junco · Starling