1
Albatross
Diomedea exulans
The largest flying bird by wingspan, a Southern Ocean seabird that can glide thousands of kilometers without flapping and live over 60 years.
Looking for 9-letter birds? Here are 20 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 9-letter Birds
2
Brambling
Fringilla montifringilla
A handsome winter finch from Scandinavian forests that arrives in Britain each autumn — the male has a striking orange-and-black plumage in breeding dress, and in exceptional years when beech mast crops are abundant, millions can gather at single sites across Central Europe in breathtaking communal roosts.
3
Chaffinch
Fringilla coelebs
Britain's second most common bird and one of Europe's most abundant — the male in spring is a strikingly handsome bird with a pink-red breast, slate-blue head, and bold white wing bars; males sing a loud, rattling song ending in a distinctive flourish that varies in dialect between regions.
4
Chickadee
Poecile atricapillus (Black-capped); Poecile carolinensis (Carolina)
A small, fearless North American songbird with distinctive black cap and bib — beloved feeder birds known for sophisticated alarm calls that encode information about predator size and danger level.
5
Cormorant
Phalacrocoracidae (family)
A diving water bird with non-waterproof feathers — visible drying with spread wings on rocks and pilings, used for centuries by Asian fishermen as living fishing tools, and now ecologically critical fish-eaters across coastal and inland waters worldwide.
6
Crossbill
Loxia curvirostra
A finch with a uniquely crossed bill — the upper and lower mandibles overlap like a pair of scissors, allowing it to prise open pine and spruce cones and extract the seeds inside with precision; crossbills can breed in the depths of winter when cones are ripe, sometimes nesting in snow.
7
Fieldfare
Turdus pilaris
A large, handsome thrush that arrives in Britain from Scandinavia each autumn in clattering flocks to feast on hawthorn berries and windfall apples — with its distinctive chestnut back, grey rump, and spotted orange breast, it is one of Britain's most striking winter visitors.
8
Firecrest
Regulus ignicapilla
The more brilliant cousin of the goldcrest — the firecrest matches the goldcrest in size (one of Europe's smallest birds) but is more vividly marked; the male has a brilliant orange-red crest stripe flanked by black, white supercilium, and bronze patches on the sides of the neck giving a jewelled appearance; a scarce but increasing breeder in Britain, mainly in spruce woodland in southern England.
9
Goldcrest
Regulus regulus
Britain's smallest bird — the goldcrest weighs as little as a 10-pence coin, and at 4–7 g is the joint-smallest bird in Europe alongside the firecrest; a tiny olive-green bird with a bright stripe on the crown — yellow in females, orange-red in males, displayed when excited; common in coniferous woodland and one of the most abundant British birds despite suffering severe losses in cold winters.
10
Goldfinch
Carduelis carduelis
A brilliantly coloured small finch with a crimson face, black and white head, and gleaming yellow wingbars — a specialist seed-eater that uses its narrow bill to extract seeds from thistles and teasels; one of Britain's most beloved garden birds.
11
Guillemot
Uria aalge
A sea-going auk that nests by the million on vertical sea cliffs, packing shoulder-to-shoulder in dense colonies — it flies underwater using its wings to pursue fish to depths of 180 metres, and its pear-shaped egg rolls in a circle rather than off the cliff edge if knocked.
12
Little Owl
Athene noctua
Britain's smallest owl and the only one to be diurnal — this compact, flat-headed owl perches in the open on fence posts, telegraph poles, and old walls, staring at passers-by with intense yellow eyes and bobbing its head in indignation; introduced to Britain from the Continent in the 1870s and 1880s, it is now a naturalised and widely distributed species.
13
Partridge
Perdix perdix
A plump, ground-dwelling game bird of European farmland and hedgerows — the "pear tree" bird of the twelve days of Christmas, now in serious decline across much of its range due to agricultural intensification.
14
Ptarmigan
Lagopus muta
The high Arctic grouse that turns completely white in winter — Britain's only truly alpine bird, confined to the Scottish Highlands above 800 metres; it moults three times a year to match its surroundings (brown in summer, mottled grey in autumn, pure white in winter) and is so well camouflaged that walkers almost step on them before the bird moves.
15
Razorbill
Alca torda
A cliff-nesting seabird with a distinctive laterally flattened "razor" bill, banded in white — the closest living relative of the extinct great auk; it dives deep for fish by flying underwater with its wings, nests on cliff ledges in large colonies alongside guillemots and puffins, and is an excellent indicator of North Atlantic fish stocks.
16
Ring Ouzel
Turdus torquatus
The mountain blackbird of Britain's uplands — a stocky thrush resembling a blackbird with a distinctive white crescent bib, breeding on moorland and mountain slopes above 250 metres; a migratory species that arrives from Africa in late March and departs by October, its far-carrying, melancholy song one of the definitive sounds of the wild uplands.
17
Sandpiper
Scolopacidae (family)
A diverse family of small to medium shorebirds with long bills probing for invertebrates in mud and sand — many species undertake some of the longest non-stop bird migrations on Earth, sometimes 11,000+ km in a single flight.
18
Spoonbill
Platalea leucorodia
A tall, all-white wading bird with a spatula-shaped bill that sweeps side to side through shallow water — one of Europe's most spectacular wetland birds, and a conservation success story after near-extinction in northwestern Europe.
19
Stonechat
Saxicola rubicola
A compact, upright chat of heathland and coastal scrub — the male has a striking black head, white collar, and bright orange breast, and sits prominently on gorse or bramble stems making a harsh "wheet-tsak-tsak" call like two pebbles being knocked together; year-round resident on British heathland, it is one of the first birds to establish territories in January.
20
Willow Tit
Poecile montanus
Britain's most rapidly declining resident bird — the willow tit has lost over 90% of its British population since the 1970s, one of the steepest declines of any British species; virtually identical to the marsh tit but distinguishable by its duller black cap, pale wing panel, and very different nasal buzzing call; it excavates its own nest hole in rotten wood, an unusual behaviour for a tit.
About 9-letter birds
That's our current list of birds with exactly 9 letters. Need a different length? Try the browse-by-length pills in the sidebar, or combine with a starting letter — for example, 9-letter birds that start with A.