Birds Word Search
- OSTRICH
- PARROT
- MAGPIE
- SWAN
- FINCH
- HERON
- WREN
- PELICAN
- OSPREY
- VULTURE
- CANARY
- SPARROW
Created for free at puzzleandprint.com
Your word search
Birds Word Search, Answer Key
- OSTRICH
- PARROT
- MAGPIE
- SWAN
- FINCH
- HERON
- WREN
- PELICAN
- OSPREY
- VULTURE
- CANARY
- SPARROW
Created for free at puzzleandprint.com
Or take one that is already made
Four sheets, each with a different job. Every one is a two-page PDF, the puzzle, then the answer key on its own page.
Birds word search, large print11 × 11 · 7 words · EasyDownload PDF ↓
Birds word search, everyday14 × 14 · 11 words · MediumDownload PDF ↓
Birds word search, more words15 × 15 · 14 words · MediumDownload PDF ↓
Birds word search, challenge17 × 17 · 15 words · HardDownload PDF ↓Every sheet here is free to print as often as you like. If one saved you time, the tip jar is on Ko-fi.
This list spans the birds children actually see (robin, sparrow, magpie), and the ones they only meet in books, like pelican and flamingo. That mix is deliberate: the familiar ones give a way in, the unfamiliar ones are what is being learned.
It works well alongside a nature walk or a window-watching activity. A puzzle made from the birds you might genuinely spot that week lands better than a generic set.
Bird names are unusually good for spelling practice because so many of them break the rules a child has just been taught. Wren, pigeon and cuckoo are none of them spelled the way they sound.
Seven of the forty birds, KIWI, PUFFIN, ALBATROSS, CARDINAL, BLUEJAY, SWALLOW and BLUEBIRD, are on none of the printed sheets. The other thirty-three are passed along from sheet to sheet: DOVE moves from large print to everyday, five everyday birds carry on to the more words sheet, and eight of the more words birds return on the challenge sheet.
Which birds on the bird word search cannot fly
Four birds on this list cannot fly: PENGUIN, OSTRICH, EMU and KIWI. PENGUIN is on the everyday sheet, OSTRICH and EMU are on the challenge sheet, and KIWI is on none of the four, though it can appear in the maker above, which picks from all forty birds each time you press New puzzle. Each of the four still has wings and does something other than fly with them, or very little at all: a PENGUIN swims with its wings, an OSTRICH spreads them for balance and display, and a KIWI has wings so small they are hidden under its feathers. Why a bird would stop flying is a good question to leave a class with.
Six more are birds of prey: EAGLE, OWL, HAWK, FALCON, OSPREY and VULTURE. The first three are on the large print sheet, which gives it a strong pull for a child who likes the dramatic birds, and the other three wait on the challenge sheet. CROW, RAVEN, MAGPIE and BLUEJAY all belong to the crow family, a link few children expect between a black bird and a bright blue one. Two names depend on where you live: CARDINAL and BLUEJAY are North American birds, and ROBIN means a small orange-breasted bird in Britain but a much larger thrush in North America, so classes on either side of the Atlantic picture different birds.
What names like woodpecker and kingfisher tell a child about a bird
WOODPECKER and KINGFISHER are names that describe what the bird does: one drums into wood and one dives for fish. CUCKOO goes further and is named after its own call. Once a child knows that, the long names stop being hard to spell, because WOODPECKER is just wood and pecker, ten letters with no surprises, and KINGFISHER is king and fisher. SEAGULL, PEACOCK, BLUEJAY and BLUEBIRD are compounds as well, so six of the forty birds break into two short words before anyone has to learn a new spelling. BLUEBIRD is the plainest of them, named for nothing more than its color.
The bird sheets hold WOODPECKER and KINGFISHER back until the more words sheet, where a fifteen-square grid has room for a ten-letter name in every direction the sheet allows. They return on the challenge sheet, now free to run backwards or up a diagonal, alongside EMU, three letters and easy to miss. The everyday sheet, fourteen squares and eleven words, is the birds of park and pond, PIGEON, DOVE, SWAN, GOOSE, HERON and FINCH, with color from PARROT, FLAMINGO, PEACOCK and CANARY, and PENGUIN as the odd one out. Those eleven make a good checklist to take on a visit to a park, a pond or a zoo.
Common questions
Are these birds we would actually see?
Some are, on purpose. ROBIN, SPARROW, CROW and PIGEON turn up in most backyards, and three of them, ROBIN, SPARROW and CROW, are on the large print sheet. The birds known from books come later: OSTRICH, TOUCAN and EMU are on the challenge sheet only, and ALBATROSS and PUFFIN are on none of the four.
How does this work alongside a bird feeder?
Keep the large-print sheet by the window. It uses ROBIN, SPARROW, EAGLE, OWL, HAWK, CROW and DOVE, so about half of it is findable outdoors as well as on paper. Children who will not sit still for a word list will often sit still for a window.
Why is BLUEJAY written as one word on the bird list?
Because a word search grid has no room for a space, so the bird usually written as blue jay is joined into one word, the same way the maker joins any two-word entry you type. BLUEJAY is not on the four ready-made sheets, but it can appear when the maker picks from the full list, so it is worth showing children the usual spelling alongside it.
Want to know when new printables go up?
New printables when they go up, mostly seasonal, a few times a year.