1
Booby
Sula nebouxii
A large, torpedo-shaped seabird that hunts by plunge-diving from heights of 30 metres — remarkable for its sky-blue or bright red feet used in elaborate courtship displays, and for colonial nesting on remote islands.
Looking for 5-letter birds? Here are 17 birds that fit — each linked to a full profile.
Letters are counted across the whole name with spaces, hyphens, apostrophes, and diacritics excluded. "Apple Pie" is 8 letters; "Boeuf Bourguignon" is 16.
List of 5-letter Birds
2
Crane
Gruidae (family)
A tall, long-legged wading bird famous for elaborate courtship dances, lifelong pair bonds, and distinctive trumpeting calls — 15 species worldwide, with several critically endangered and others recovered through dedicated conservation.
3
Eagle
Haliaeetus leucocephalus
A large North American sea eagle and the national bird of the United States, recovered from near-extinction to abundance over the past five decades.
4
Egret
Egretta and Ardea (genera)
A type of heron — typically all-white and slim — historically devastated by feather hunters for hat decoration in the early 1900s, now a major conservation success story whose protection helped found the modern environmental movement.
5
Finch
Fringillidae (true finches); also Geospiza (Darwin's finches)
A small, seed-eating songbird with a thick conical beak — including the Galapagos finches that helped Darwin develop natural selection theory, the canaries of pet history, and many beloved garden visitors.
6
Goose
Branta canadensis
A large migratory waterfowl with a black neck and white chinstrap, abundant across North America and increasingly resident in suburban parks where milder winters and grass lawns allow year-round survival.
7
Heron
Ardea herodias (great blue heron)
A long-legged wading bird that stands motionless in shallow water, then strikes with neck-spear precision — the great blue heron a familiar sight at North American wetlands.
8
Hobby
Falco subbuteo
A dashing, long-winged falcon — sleek and swift, with the silhouette of a large swift, the hobby is one of Britain's most aerial predators, specialising in catching dragonflies and swallows in flight at speed; adults have slate-grey upperparts, heavily streaked underparts, and vivid rusty-red thighs and undertail; a summer visitor from Africa, arriving in late spring when dragonflies emerge.
9
Junco
Junco hyemalis
A small, ground-foraging sparrow nicknamed the "snowbird," common in winter across North America with regional color forms so different they were once classified as separate species.
10
Macaw
Ara macao
A large, brilliantly colored Central and South American parrot with a powerful nutcracking bill and lifelong pair bonds, threatened across most of its range by habitat loss and poaching.
11
Quail
Callipepla californica
A plump, ground-foraging gamebird with a distinctive teardrop-shaped plume on its head, the official state bird of California and a familiar sight in western U.S. backyards.
12
Raven
Corvus corax
The largest songbird and one of the most intelligent — a massive black corvid celebrated in mythology and Edgar Allan Poe alike, with documented problem-solving rivaling great apes.
13
Robin
Turdus migratorius
A large, orange-breasted thrush common across North American lawns and gardens, an early sign of spring and the most numerous land bird on the continent.
14
Snipe
Gallinago gallinago
A cryptically patterned wader of wet grassland and bogs — famous for its evasive zigzagging escape flight, its ethereal "drumming" display sound made by tail feathers, and for being the origin of the word "sniper."
15
Stork
Ciconiidae (family)
A large long-legged wading bird famous in folklore for delivering babies — about 19 species worldwide ranging from the white stork's chimney-top nests to the marabou's massive 3 m wingspan.
16
Swift
Apus apus
A dark, scythe-winged aerial specialist that spends almost its entire life on the wing — eating, sleeping, bathing, and mating in flight — landing only to nest, making it the most aerial bird in the world.
17
Vireo
Vireonidae (family)
Small olive-green songbirds of American forests known for persistent singing — especially the red-eyed vireo, which holds the record for most songs sung in a day at over 22,000 individual songs.
About 5-letter birds
That's our current list of birds with exactly 5 letters. Need a different length? Try the browse-by-length pills in the sidebar, or combine with a starting letter — for example, 5-letter birds that start with A.