The Official List of the Birds of Tennessee

April 2014

The Official List of the Birds of Tennessee is compiled by the Tennessee Bird Records Committee.  The sequence and nomenclature follow the American Ornithologists’ Union Check-list of North American Birds, Seventh Edition (1998) and more recent supplements.

The checklist includes 409 species that have been recorded in the state of Tennessee and are deemed to be naturally occurring or established, introduced species.  Each species is assigned a status code according to the recent relative frequency with which it is recorded in the state.  These status codes are defined as follows:

Regular  –  expected to occur every year in appropriate season and habitat;

Casual  –  occurs with some frequency but not every year;

Accidental  –  very rare and unpredictable vagrant;

Extirpated  –  no longer occurs within the state;

eXtinct  –  no longer occurs anywhere; and

Provisional   –  less than 3 accepted records within the state without photographs or a specimen.

The Committee requests documentation for all species on the Review List and any species not currently on the list.  In general, reports of Regular species are considered valid records without documentation.  However, some of these Regularspecies only occur in very specific or local habitat, and should be documented when seen away from their normal range.  Occasionally other species classified Regular occur unexpectedly (for example, out of season) and the Committee may request documentation of details.

Species denoted with an asterisk (*) are documented to have bred within Tennessee in accordance with the classification of ‘confirmed breeder’ as defined in the Atlas of the Breeding Birds of Tennessee (documented evidence of a nest or young).  The Committee requests documentation of breeding for any species not previously known to have bred in Tennessee .

As a special note, the recent reports of Whooping Crane in Tennessee represent birds from as-yet un-established reintroduction efforts in northern states.  The TBRC encourages everyone to continue documenting such sightings and reporting them to the regional editors of the seasonal reports in The Migrant; however, the TBRC will not act on these reports unless these populations should become established and self-sustaining.

OFFICIAL LIST OF THE BIRDS OF TENNESSEE  

Order Anseriformes

Order Galliformes (Grouse, Quails, and Allies)

Order Gaviiformes (Loons)