What is the Iowa state bird?

Why is the goldfinch Iowa's state bird?

Because it is common and it stays. The bird was chosen “because it is commonly found in Iowa and often stays through the winter,” says the Iowa Legislature in its guide to the state symbols.

The day is in the state's own almanac. “The forty-fifth general assembly, by a concurrent resolution adopted March 22, 1933,” designated the Eastern Goldfinch “as the official bird of Iowa,” the Iowa Official Register for 1935–1936 reports (Official Register, 1935–1936), and the 1983–84 edition gives the same day (Official Register, 1983–84). We could not find the resolution's number.

The goldfinch joined an older symbol. The same 1935 page records that the wild rose became the state flower by a resolution adopted May 7, 1897; the Legislature's guide says the rose was chosen because it decorated the silver service Iowa gave the battleship USS Iowa that year.

Is the Eastern Goldfinch the same as the American Goldfinch?

Yes. Eastern Goldfinch is the name Iowa used in 1933, with the scientific name Spinus tristis tristis, one form of the species; birders today call the whole species the American Goldfinch.

Iowans have a third name for it. “The Goldfinch is generally designated as a wild canary,” the 1935–1936 Register says, and the 1983–84 edition repeats that “The bird is often called a wild canary.”

The scientific name has gone in a circle. The 1935 Register used the genus Spinus; the American Ornithologists' Union's 1983 Check-list filed the bird under Carduelis, the name the Legislature's symbols guide still prints (AOU Check-list, 1983); and today's world list, AviList, puts it back in Spinus, as Spinus tristis. Linnaeus first named it in 1758 from Mark Catesby's “The American Goldfinch,” a bird described from South Carolina, the Check-list notes.

The name went to school, too. The 1983–84 Register lists, among the state Historical Department's publications, “‘The Goldfinch,’ a history magazine for school children,” published four times during the school year.

When do goldfinches nest in Iowa?

Late, in high summer. In late July or early August, the Legislature's guide says, goldfinches build their nests from plant materials and “line them with thistle-down.” The eggs hatch after about two weeks, and the young leave the nest at two to three weeks old.

The goldfinch is a late nester, beginning in midsummer, “perhaps to assure a peak supply of late-summer seeds for feeding its young,” the National Audubon Society's guide suggests. The female's cup of plant fibers and thistle down is “so well-made that it may even hold water.”

Its main food, Iowa's guide says, is seeds: dandelions, sunflowers, ragweed and evening primrose.

Do goldfinches stay in Iowa in winter?

Many do, in plainer feathers. “The male goldfinch acquires the same dull plumage in the winter months,” the Legislature's guide says, the olive-yellow of the female, and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources notes that “Iowa's state bird doesn't lose all of its coloring in winter,” though its color is “more muted than its usual bright yellow.”

Audubon noticed it in 1831: “The old ones lose their beauty in winter,” he wrote, and “at that season, young and old of both sexes resemble each other” (Audubon's text, vol. 1).

So the dull finch at a January feeder is still Iowa's state bird, doing just what the Legislature chose it for: staying through the winter.

Where can you see goldfinches in Iowa?

At a feeder, most easily. “Tube feeders with black oil sunflower or thistle seeds will attract finches,” Anna Buckardt Thomas, an avian ecologist with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, advised in 2024 (Iowa DNR, 2024).

Out in the country, look at weedy edges. The 1983 Check-list lists its haunts as “Weedy fields, cultivated lands,” orchards and farmlands, among others. In 1935 the Register found goldfinches “rather common in the southern part of the state” but “less numerous in the northern part.”

Listen for the flight call. The Audubon guide describes a summer male “flashing golden in the sun, calling ‘perchickory’ as it bounds up and down in flight.”

The oldest goldfinch on record is on our page of the oldest wild birds, and more goldfinch paintings are on our American Goldfinch painting page; Audubon's large version is plate 33.

Which other states have the Iowa state bird?

Two: New Jersey, which also calls it the eastern goldfinch, and Washington, whose 1951 law names the willow goldfinch, the Pacific Coast form. None of the three goldfinch states uses the name American Goldfinch.

Iowa's neighbors chose a mix: Minnesota the Common Loon, Wisconsin the American Robin, Illinois the cardinal, Missouri the Eastern Bluebird, Nebraska the Western Meadowlark and South Dakota the Ring-necked Pheasant.

Questions about the Iowa state bird