What is the Florida state bird?

How did the mockingbird become Florida's state bird?

By a resolution. The Florida Department of State says that “Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 3 of the 1927 legislative session designated the mockingbird,” and a 2022 Senate resolution gives the day: “on April 23, 1927, the Legislature approved Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 3” (S.C.R. 324 of 2022).

The resolution praised the bird in the language of its day. As a 2025 Senate staff analysis quotes it, “the melody of its music has delighted the heart of residents and visitors,” and the mockingbird is “this bird of matchless charm,” found all over Florida (Senate staff analysis).

It rests on the resolution alone. A 2000 House analysis put the state bird among the “commonly recognized state symbols not found in statute” (House analysis of H.B. 681).

How often has Florida tried to replace the mockingbird?

Again and again, mostly with the Florida scrub-jay. In 1999 a House bill for the scrub-jay “passed two committees and died upon adjournment,” and a Senate bill, S.B. 188, died in committee. In 2000 a House committee voted down Representative Futch's H.B. 681, 2 votes to 5, according to the House analysis.

The scrub-jay came back in 2016, and then three years running in bills by Senator Polsky, in 2022, 2023 and 2024. None of them passed. In 2022 a resolution, S.C.R. 324, went further and proposed rescinding the mockingbird outright; it died as well.

The nearest miss came in 2026. Two bills, S.B. 150 and H.B. 11, would have made the American flamingo the state bird and the scrub-jay the state songbird. H.B. 11 passed the House 112 to 1, and then both bills died in the Senate on March 13, 2026 (S.B. 150 history).

When do mockingbirds sing in Florida?

For most of the year. The Senate staff analysis says Florida's mockingbirds “typically sing from February through August and September to early November,” and live in many habitats, from meadows and saltwater wetlands to towns and cities.

They stay all year. The Department of State calls the mockingbird a “year-round Florida resident” that “is known for its fierce defense of the family nest.”

Who painted this mockingbird?

John Gerrard Keulemans, a Dutch bird painter, for his own book Onze Vogels in Huis en Tuin (“Our Birds in House and Garden”). He wrote the book and drew its plates; the mockingbird is in the second volume, of 1873.

Keulemans had his doubts about mockingbirds as house birds, and two of his stories are on our Texas state bird and Tennessee state bird pages, which use the same plate. Audubon's own mockingbirds, fighting off a rattlesnake at their nest, are on our Northern Mockingbird painting page.

Which other states share Florida's state bird?

Four: Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas. The Department of State lists them itself: “it is also the state bird of Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Texas.”

Texas named the mockingbird in the same year as Florida, 1927, also by a concurrent resolution, and Tennessee chose it in 1933, after a statewide vote.

Questions about the Florida state bird