These habitats make the state a haven both for woodland species like Cerulean Warbler and for open-country birds like Dickcissel.
Missouri’s topography is defined mainly by rolling farmland with remnant prairie to the north and west, and the forested Ozarks and the flat alluvial plain in the south and southeast. Missouri is also equidistant from the Canadian border and the Gulf coast, so that we have such nesting birds as Swainson’s Warbler and Painted Bunting in the southernmost counties, and Mississippi Kite more widely, while winter visitors like Northern Shrike, Rough-legged Hawk, and Glaucous Gull are regular in the more northerly parts. Being east of center, our state will always fall within the “eastern” volume of any two-volume field guide yet one can feel a pull from the West at the sight of a Swainson’s Hawk or a Greater Roadrunner…or a Collared Lizard on a cedar glade.
Missouri lies in the middle of the great North American heartland, with a fauna that reflects influences from all directions.
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