Purple sandpiper. Photo by Andreas Trepte / Wikimedia.

Rhode Island Bird Watching

Birding Rhode Island

It’s the smallest state in the Union, but Rhode Island still boasts 384 miles of tidal shoreline along the Atlantic Ocean and Narragansett Bay—enough coastline to give it the nickname the Ocean State. Little Rhody is mostly flat and pockmarked with lakes. Its forests are part of the Northeast coastal ecoregion. eBird reports document 395 species; its state bird checklist shows 323 regularly occurring species (with distributions ranging from abundant to rare), plus 100 vagrants. The state boasts 61,000 acres of public land, which is a whopping 10 percent of the state. Five national wildlife refuges comprise the Rhode Island National Wildlife Refuge complex, including some of the state’s best birding locations.