1
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.
If you've been searching for birds that start with M, you'll find 6 detailed birds below. We're not interested in giving you only a list of names — every entry on this page links to a full profile with the kind of detail you'd actually want to know.
For birds, that means taxonomy, habitat, diet, wingspan, migration pattern, and conservation status.
Table of contents
| Macaw | Magpie | Marsh Harrier | Marsh Tit |
| Merlin | Mockingbird |
List of Birds That Start With M
2
Magpie
Pica pica (Eurasian); Cracticus tibicen (Australian — different family)
A long-tailed black-and-white corvid with iridescent blue-green wing flashes — Eurasian magpies are among the most-studied intelligent birds, while Australian magpies are renowned for spring swooping attacks on humans.
3
Marsh Harrier
Circus aeruginosus
Britain's largest harrier — a spectacular bird of prey of reedbeds and marshes, the male has a striking grey wing patch contrasting with russet body and black wingtips; it quartered over British reedbeds for centuries but was driven to extinction by hunting and egg collection, with only one pair breeding by 1971; a successful conservation recovery has produced over 600 pairs today.
4
Marsh Tit
Poecile palustris
A small, glossy-capped tit of ancient woodland — easily confused with the willow tit but distinguished by its glossier black cap, cleaner white cheeks, and distinctive 'pitchoo' call; like all tits, the marsh tit is an intelligent, acrobatic forager; it is a food-hoarder, storing thousands of individual seeds in bark crevices and leaf litter, and has an exceptional spatial memory for relocating them.
5
Merlin
Falco columbarius
Britain's smallest falcon — a fierce, compact little raptor of upland moorland and coasts that hunts small birds with explosive speed, often following close to the ground in low dashing pursuit; the female is streaky brown, the male is blue-grey above with an orange-buff breast, and both are easily overlooked until they erupt in a burst of rapid wingbeats.
6
Mockingbird
Mimus polyglottos (Northern); various other Mimus and Mimidae species
A medium-sized gray songbird famous for mimicking dozens of other species — capable of imitating 200+ songs and sounds across a lifetime, with the northern mockingbird as Harper Lee's literary symbol of innocence.
About birds starting with M
That's our current list of birds starting with the letter M. We add new entries every week — if you have a favorite bird starting with M that isn't on this page, let us know and we'll write it up.
Looking for more? Try birds that end with M, or contain M anywhere in the name.