9 birds starting with the letter W — each with origin, classification, and notes.
If you've been searching for birds that start with W, you'll find 9 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.
| Warbler | Waxwing | Weaver | Wheatear |
| Whitethroat | Willow Tit | Woodcock | Woodpecker |
| Wren |
Small, often brightly colored songbirds — the "wood warblers" of the New World contain over 110 dazzling species, while "Old World warblers" comprise different families with different characteristics, both crucial for migration and forest insect control.
A plump, crested bird with silky pinkish-brown plumage, a waxy red tips on its secondary feathers, and a voracious appetite for berries — irrupts into Western Europe and North America in winter when Scandinavian berry crops fail.
Small African songbirds famous for elaborate woven nests — males construct intricate hanging structures, often with multiple chambers and entrances, to attract females and rear young in colonies.
A migratory chat with a flash of white rump that arrives on British uplands each spring from sub-Saharan Africa — one of the earliest summer migrants, sometimes appearing in late February; the male has a grey back and black eye mask; it undertakes one of the most remarkable migrations of any small bird, with Greenland birds crossing the entire Atlantic non-stop.
A scratchy, energetic warbler of bramble scrub and overgrown hedgerows — the male has a white throat that puffs out during his jerky song-flight display, in which he rises a few metres into the air and parachutes back down singing; a common summer visitor that suffered a catastrophic population crash in 1969 due to Sahel drought.
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.
The forest phantom of the twilight — the woodcock is almost never seen by day, relying on extraordinary cryptic plumage of dead-leaf brown, chestnut, and black bars to become invisible on the woodland floor; it emerges at dawn and dusk to probe soft ground for earthworms with its long, sensitive bill; males perform a distinctive display flight called roding over woodland in the breeding season.
A large, crow-sized woodpecker with a vivid red crest, the model for Woody Woodpecker; chisels rectangular holes deep into wood with a series of head-snapping impacts.
Tiny brown songbirds with surprisingly loud voices — about 88 species worldwide, with the iconic Eurasian wren weighing just 10 grams while producing some of the loudest songs in the bird world.
That's our current list of birds starting with the letter W. We add new entries every week — if you have a favorite bird starting with W that isn't on this page, let us know and we'll write it up.
Looking for more? Try birds that end with W, or contain W anywhere in the name.