2022 State of the Birds Tipping Point Species List Explained

Short answer

• The 2022 State of the Birds report named 70 Tipping Point species in the United States. In the report's own summary, these birds had each lost 50 percent or more of their populations in the past 50 years and were on a track to lose another half in the next 50 years if nothing changed, with a further small population branch explained below. The list is a warning category, not a legal listing. None of the 70 was presented in the publishers' summary as currently listed under the federal Endangered Species Act. The point of the label was urgency: these were the birds the report's authors judged most likely to move toward endangered status without faster, larger conservation action. This article is about the 2022 edition only. Every population figure below is dated to that edition, and later figures are kept in a separate section so that the two editions are never mixed.

What the State of the Birds Report Is

The State of the Birds report is a periodic assessment of the health of bird populations in the United States. The 2022 edition was released on October 12, 2022, by the United States committee of the North American Bird Conservation Initiative, known as NABCI. Its news release describes it as published by 33 leading science and conservation organizations and agencies. That consortium, rather than a single author, is the correct way to describe who produced the report. The organizations named in the release include the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the National Audubon Society, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center, the American Bird Conservancy, Ducks Unlimited, the Bird Conservancy of the Rockies, and the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, among others. The United States Geological Survey is part of the wider federal science landscape behind long term bird monitoring, and the North American Breeding Bird Survey is run jointly by the United States Geological Survey and the Canadian Wildlife Service, but the 2022 report itself should be credited to the NABCI consortium of 33 organizations and agencies, not to any one publisher alone.

The report tracks breeding birds, not every bird that happens to pass through the United States on migration. It draws on five long term data sources named in the release: the North American Breeding Bird Survey, the Christmas Bird Count, the Waterfowl Breeding Population and Habitat Survey, International Shorebird Surveys, and the American Woodcock Singing-ground Survey. Using several surveys matters, because no single count covers all habitats, all seasons, and all species equally well. The headline trends in the 2022 report generally cover 1970 to 2019 for breeding birds, except for shorebirds, whose trend in the report’s chart begins in 1980. That date range is important. When this article says a group fell by a given percentage since 1970, it means the change measured across that long window, not a change in a single year and not a forecast on its own.

The 2022 report was also the first full look at the nation’s birds since a landmark 2019 study that found a loss of 3 billion birds in the United States and Canada over 50 years. That context explains why the 2022 edition drew so much attention. It was not announcing a single new decline. It was checking, habitat by habitat, whether the pattern found in 2019 had changed, and which species were now closest to a point of no easy return.

Readers who want the broad picture of North American birds should start with the scale of the assessment. The report’s summary states that more than half of United States bird species were declining in 2022. That is a statement about the direction of travel across many species, not a claim that every species was falling at the same speed. Some groups fell steeply. One group, wetland birds, moved in the opposite direction. The Tipping Point list sits inside that mixed picture, and it is best understood as the report’s way of naming the steepest and most urgent cases.

What Tipping Point Means

Tipping Point is a category created for the 2022 report by scientists working with the Road to Recovery initiative. It does not mean that a species has already crossed a point beyond saving. It means that, on the evidence available in 2022, the species was judged to be on a trajectory that would make recovery much harder if declines continued at the same pace. The publishers’ summary uses a memorable image for this idea, describing the 70 species as having a half life of just 50 years. In plain language, that means the population could halve again in the next 50 years if nothing changed. It is a projection based on past trends, not a measured fact about the future, and this article treats it that way throughout.

The criteria, as described in the report’s summary and in the publishers’ release, have two branches. The main branch covers species that had lost half or more of their populations in the past 50 years and were on a trajectory to lose another half in the next 50 years. The second branch covers species that already had perilously small populations and continued to face high threats, but lacked sufficient monitoring data to fit the first branch cleanly. That second branch matters for accuracy. It means the headline sentence that every Tipping Point species lost 50 percent is a simplification of a slightly more careful definition. Most of the 70 fit the first branch. A smaller set was included because small numbers plus high threats plus thin data still added up to urgent risk, even where a precise 50 percent loss could not be calculated in the same way.

The Tipping Point species were drawn from two existing conservation lists. The first is the Birds of Conservation Concern list, maintained by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, which in the report’s summary identifies 269 migratory nongame bird species that, without additional conservation action, are likely to become candidates for listing under the Endangered Species Act. The second source is state lists of Species of Greatest Conservation Need, which appear in state wildlife action plans. At least 62 of the 70 Tipping Point species had been identified as Species of Greatest Conservation Need in state plans, according to the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies summary of the report. That detail shows that the Tipping Point list was not invented from nothing. It was a sharper filter applied to species already recognized as needing help.

It also helps to place the 70 inside a larger group. The report identified 90 species as On Alert. Those were birds that had lost half or more of their breeding populations in the past 50 years but were not listed under the Endangered Species Act. The 70 Tipping Point species are the subset of that wider group judged most urgent, either because they were on track to lose another half in the next 50 years or because they already had small populations, high threats, and limited data. Readers who see the number 90 elsewhere are not looking at a different list. They are looking at the larger On Alert group from which the 70 were drawn.

What Tipping Point does not mean is equally important. It is not the same as threatened or endangered status under federal law. The publishers’ summary is explicit that none of the 70 was currently listed under the federal Endangered Species Act at the time of the 2022 report. Tipping Point is a scientific warning label used by the report’s authors. A legal listing would follow a separate process with its own criteria, evidence standards, and public procedures. Confusing the two would overstate the legal position of these birds and understate the report’s actual argument, which was that action should come before a legal listing becomes necessary.

The Headline Trends in 2022

The Tipping Point list cannot be read without the habitat trends that produced it. In 2022, the report found declines in nearly every habitat, with one clear exception. Forests, grasslands, deserts, and oceans all showed overall declines for breeding birds. Wetlands were the exception, and that exception became the report’s central proof that conservation investment can work.

The figures below are all from the 2022 report’s summary, dated to the 1970 to 2019 window unless stated otherwise. Grassland birds were among the fastest declining, with a 34 percent loss since 1970. Shorebirds fell by 33 percent since 1970, with the shorebird trend measured from 1980 in the report’s chart. Eastern forest birds showed a 30 percent loss since 1970, although summaries of the report note that the curve had leveled off since 2009, which is a slowing of decline, not a recovery. Waterbirds increased by 18 percent and ducks increased by 34 percent over the same long period. Geese and swans were described in publisher summaries as near historic levels, with increases of more than 1,000 percent since 1970 in one summary of the waterfowl picture. Those wetland gains are the reason the report’s headline was framed as losses in all habitats except one.

Those numbers also explain why the report kept returning to wetlands. The wetland gains were credited in the release to a framework built over decades: the North American Waterfowl Management Plan, the Federal Duck Stamp Program, grants under the North American Wetlands Conservation Act, and regional Joint Ventures partnerships. Hunters, landowners, state and federal agencies, and corporations were all named as contributors. The report’s argument was not that wetlands are naturally safe. It was that sustained funding, habitat protection, and coordinated planning had produced a measurable result there, and that the same approach, adapted to other habitats, could slow or reverse declines elsewhere.

The 2019 baseline still frames the 2022 numbers. The loss of 3 billion birds in the United States and Canada over 50 years, reported in 2019, was a combined figure for many species, not a count of Tipping Point species alone. It is included here because the 2022 report was presented as the first full check since that study. It should not be read as a 2022 total, and it should not be added to the 2022 habitat percentages. The two sets of figures describe different scopes and different methods, and keeping them separate is part of reading the report honestly.

Grassland Birds on the List

Grassland birds are the largest and most urgent part of the 2022 story. With a 34 percent loss since 1970, the group as a whole was falling faster than any other habitat group in the report. The causes named across the report’s summaries are familiar and linked: conversion of grassland to cropland, loss of open habitat to development and woody plant growth, changes in grazing and mowing, and drought pressure in parts of the range. No single cause explains every grassland species, and the report does not pretend otherwise. The pattern is a habitat pattern, and the species on the list are the sharpest examples of it.

The Bobolink is one of the best known grassland Tipping Point species, and the report’s release uses it as a featured example. Bobolinks need open grassland for breeding, and they are sensitive to the timing of mowing and haying, because nests on the ground can be lost when fields are cut early. The Greater Sage-Grouse is another widely discussed grassland and sagebrush species on the list. Its story is tied to large, intact sagebrush landscapes, and to the fragmentation of those landscapes by roads, energy development, and invasive plants. The Sprague’s Pipit, the Henslow’s Sparrow, and the Chestnut-collared Longspur are also named in the report as grassland Tipping Point species. Each occupies a different slice of grassland, from tall grass to short grass prairie, which is why the report treats grassland conservation as a landscape task rather than a single species task.

The Central Grasslands Roadmap, described in the 2022 release, shows the scale the report had in mind. It involved 200 organizations from across seven sectors in Mexico, Canada, the United States, and Indigenous Nations, working to conserve hundreds of millions of acres of grassland. That scale can sound abstract, but it reflects a practical point. Grassland birds need large, connected areas. Protecting one field at a time, while helpful, does not match the size of the habitat loss measured since 1970. Readers who follow grassland birds in daily life will recognize the same pressure in smaller form: open fields turning into housing, shrubland growing into forest, and hay meadows cut on a schedule that leaves little room for ground nesting birds.

Forest Birds on the List

Forest birds tell a more mixed story than grassland birds, and the Tipping Point examples from forests show why habitat alone does not predict a species’ fate. Eastern forest birds fell by 30 percent since 1970 in the 2022 report, but the decline had leveled off since 2009. That leveling is important. It suggests that forest loss and fragmentation slowed, or that forest management and protection began to take effect, even though the long term loss remained large. Tipping Point species in eastern forests, including Bicknell’s Thrush and the Evening Grosbeak, were reported in summaries of the report as having declined by 63 percent since 1970 as a forest group subset, with the rate of decline slowing somewhat in recent years. That figure should be read as a subset figure for the Tipping Point species in that habitat, not as the figure for all eastern forest birds.

The Golden-winged Warbler is one of the most cited forest Tipping Point species. It needs young forest and shrubland, a habitat that is easily lost when forests mature uniformly or when open shrubby areas are developed. The Chimney Swift is also named in the report as a forest Tipping Point species. Each uses forest in a different way, from canopy to understory to dense thickets, which is why forest conservation in the report is not only about protecting old forest. It is also about keeping a mix of forest ages and structures across a landscape.

The Wood Thrush is a useful example of how the lists overlap. It appears in discussions of eastern forest birds of concern, and its song is familiar to many readers in eastern North America. Forest birds face threats that are easy to miss from the ground: forest fragmentation that creates more edge habitat for predators and brood parasites, loss of wintering habitat outside the United States, collisions with windows during migration, and exposure to pesticides that reduce insect food. A forest that looks green from a road can still be losing the birds that depend on its interior, its understory, or its insect supply. That is one reason the report relied on long term survey data rather than on a simple count of forest area.

For readers trying to place forest birds in a wider picture, Birds of North America gives the continental context for where these species live and how varied their ranges are. A bird that breeds in eastern forest may winter far to the south, which means that a Tipping Point label for a breeding population also raises questions about the full annual cycle, a point the report’s recovery plan returns to below.

Shorebirds, Seabirds, and Ocean Birds on the List

Shorebirds were the second steepest declining group in 2022, down 33 percent since 1970, and they supply several of the most distinctive Tipping Point species. Ten of the 29 shorebird species considered in one summary of the report were Tipping Point species. Examples named across publisher and news summaries include the Lesser Yellowlegs, the Whimbrel, the American Golden-Plover, the Semipalmated Sandpiper, the Short-billed Dowitcher, the Ruddy Turnstone, the Pectoral Sandpiper, the Buff-breasted Sandpiper, and the Least Tern. Shorebirds depend on a chain of habitats: breeding grounds in the Arctic and northern prairies, stopover wetlands and mudflats during migration, and wintering coasts far to the south. A break at any point in that chain can reduce survival, even if breeding habitat looks intact.

Seabirds and ocean birds add a different set of pressures. The Black-footed Albatross is named in the publishers’ release as an oceanic traveler on the Tipping Point list, and the Laysan Albatross appears in related summaries of ten highlighted species. Seabirds face threats at sea and on breeding islands, including fisheries bycatch, plastic and other marine debris, invasive predators on nesting islands, and changes in ocean food supply. The report’s seabird picture is also a reminder that a United States report still covers birds whose lives span oceans. Protecting a nesting island helps, but it does not by itself fix food or bycatch pressures at sea.

The Least Tern and the Saltmarsh Sparrow show how coastal and saltmarsh habitats sit at the edge of several threats at once. Least Terns nest on open sand and beaches, where disturbance, predation, and flooding can destroy colonies. Saltmarsh Sparrows nest in tidal marshes, where sea level rise and tidal flooding are direct threats to nests built just above the high tide line. The report’s Road to Recovery summary uses the Saltmarsh Sparrow as an example of coordinated action, noting that recovery work identified prioritized actions across more than a dozen states through the Atlantic Coast Joint Venture. That example matters because it shows the list was meant to trigger planning across state lines, not only local protection.

Aridland, Desert, and Western Birds on the List

Birds of arid and desert landscapes are sometimes overlooked in a report dominated by grassland and forest headlines, but the 2022 Tipping Point list includes western species whose declines reflect large scale changes in dry country. The Pinyon Jay is named in the report’s summary coverage as one of the birds teetering on the edge, alongside the Rufous Hummingbird and the Greater Sage-Grouse. Pinyon Jays depend on pinyon pine and juniper woodlands, which have been reduced and fragmented by drought, fire, and land conversion. The Mountain Plover, a grassland and dry prairie shorebird, is another example of a species that does not fit neatly into one habitat label. It breeds in short grass prairie and dry flats, and its decline reflects the same grassland pressures described above, applied to a drier landscape.

Western forest and woodland birds face a related but distinct set of pressures: altered fire patterns, drought, and forest management that changes the age and density of trees. The report’s summaries note western forest restoration programs that integrate bird conservation with efforts to increase climate, fire, and water security for nearby communities. That link between bird habitat and human safety is a recurring theme in the 2022 report. Restoring a forest to reduce severe fire risk can also restore the structure that birds need, if bird objectives are included in the plan from the start. Leaving birds out of that planning is one way a restoration project can improve one outcome while missing another.

The Rufous Hummingbird deserves a separate note, because it is often the first species readers recognize from the list. It is a small, migratory hummingbird that breeds in western North America and winters in Mexico. The publishers’ release names it as a beloved example of a Tipping Point species, and other summaries describe it as having lost a large share of its population since 1970. This article does not give a precise percentage for the Rufous Hummingbird alone, because the publisher summaries opened for this article give the 70 species figure and the 50 percent threshold, but do not publish a single verified species level percentage for this bird in the pages checked. Readers who want a species level trend should check the report itself and its supplemental trend analyses, rather than relying on a rounded figure repeated in news coverage. For identification in the field, a red throated or red chested visitor is often confused with other birds, and Bird With Red Chest explains how to separate robins, cardinals, finches, and other red marked birds by size, bill, and other marks.

Hawaiian Birds and Island Species on the List

Hawaiian birds are the most extreme case in the 2022 report, and they show why a national list must include island species even when their numbers are small. Publisher summaries of the 2022 report state that Hawaii’s ten most endangered species were collectively represented by fewer than 5,500 individual birds. That is a combined figure for ten species, not a count for any one species, and it underlines how close several Hawaiian forest birds were to disappearing altogether in 2022. Island birds face threats that mainland birds face less intensely: introduced predators, introduced diseases such as avian malaria carried by mosquitoes, habitat loss on small islands, and a limited range that leaves no nearby refuge when conditions worsen.

The Tipping Point framework fits Hawaiian birds through both branches of its definition. Some Hawaiian species have small remaining populations and high threats, and some lack the long monitoring history available for mainland breeding birds. That combination is exactly what the second branch of the definition was designed to capture. A species should not be left off an urgent list only because its decline is hard to measure in the same way as a mainland songbird counted every year on a breeding survey. The report’s inclusion of Hawaiian birds is therefore a statement about method as well as about risk: where data are thin, small numbers and high threats are enough to justify urgent attention.

Readers should not treat Hawaiian birds as a distant exception. The same island logic applies, in milder form, to any bird with a small range, a specialized habitat, or a single breeding island. Once a population falls below a certain size, chance events such as a storm, a disease outbreak, or a predator arrival can have effects that a larger population would absorb. That vulnerability is part of what the word tipping point is trying to capture. It is not only about the rate of decline. It is also about how little room is left for bad luck.

Other Groups and Examples Worth Naming

A grouped list is more useful than a bare alphabetical list, because it shows the pattern behind the names. The examples below are drawn from the publishers’ release and from summaries of the report, and they are presented as examples, not as a claim that these are the only species in each group. The full 70 species list is in the report itself, and readers who need a complete checklist for research or conservation planning should use that report rather than a summary article.

In grasslands and prairies, examples include the Bobolink, the Greater Sage-Grouse, the Sprague’s Pipit, the Henslow’s Sparrow, the Chestnut-collared Longspur, and the Mountain Plover. In eastern and northern forests, examples include the Golden-winged Warbler, the Bicknell’s Thrush, the Evening Grosbeak, and the Chimney Swift. Among shorebirds and coastal birds, examples include the Lesser Yellowlegs, the Whimbrel, the American Golden-Plover, the Semipalmated Sandpiper, the Short-billed Dowitcher, the Ruddy Turnstone, the Pectoral Sandpiper, the Buff-breasted Sandpiper, the Black Rail, and the Least Tern. Among seabirds and ocean birds, examples include the Black-footed Albatross and the Laysan Albatross. Among western and aridland birds, examples include the Pinyon Jay and the Rufous Hummingbird. Among marsh and wetland edge birds, examples include the Saltmarsh Sparrow and the Black Rail, which also appears in shorebird and marsh discussions because its habitat spans both.

Several other names recur in summaries of the list and are worth noting so that readers are not confused when they meet them elsewhere. The Chimney Swift is named in the report as a Tipping Point species. The Chimney Swift is a useful reminder that a Tipping Point species can be a bird many people see regularly. Its decline is linked to loss of nesting and roosting sites in chimneys and other structures, changes in insect food, and other pressures that are not obvious from a single sighting. A bird can still be present in a town while its population falls steadily across its range. That gap between local presence and continental trend is one reason long term surveys matter more than casual impressions.

For readers who enjoy watching birds close to home, the wider bird guides on this site help place these species in everyday contexts. Various Kinds of Birds explains how broad bird groups differ, while Black and White Birds covers identification by plumage pattern. Neither replaces the report, but both help a reader move from a name on a list to a bird seen in the field, which is where conservation concern usually begins.

Why the 2022 Edition Singled Out These Species

The 2022 edition singled out these species for three linked reasons. First, the scale of loss was large. Losing half or more of a population in 50 years is a major change by any standard, and it happened across many species at once. Second, the trajectory pointed the same way. The report did not only look backward. It asked what would happen if the same rate continued, and for the Tipping Point species the answer was another halving in the next 50 years. Third, the timing still allowed action. The report’s central message was that these birds were not yet listed as endangered, and that proactive work could still change the outcome. That third reason is the most important for understanding the tone of the report. It was written as a warning, not as an obituary.

The report also singled out these species because they point to habitat problems that affect many other birds. Grassland Tipping Point species point to grassland loss. Shorebird Tipping Point species point to wetland and coastal pressures along migration routes. Forest Tipping Point species point to forest structure and wintering habitat. Hawaiian Tipping Point species point to island threats that are hard to reverse once they take hold. In each case, helping the Tipping Point species means helping the habitat, and helping the habitat helps other species that share it. That is why the report frames the list as a set of priorities for science and conservation, not as a ranking of the most interesting birds.

A further reason is practical. Conservation funding and planning work best when priorities are named. State wildlife action plans already named many of these species as Species of Greatest Conservation Need. The Tipping Point list gave those plans a national filter: among species already recognized as needing help, which ones were closest to a crisis? That filter was intended to help agencies, partnerships, and communities decide where to focus first, where to build working groups, and where to measure progress. It was not intended to suggest that species outside the 70 do not matter. The report’s broader finding, that more than half of United States species were declining, makes that clear.

What Conservation Actions the Report Called For

The 2022 report did not only name a problem. It outlined a Road to Recovery, a five step approach designed to stop declines before they reached crisis levels. The five actions, as summarized by NABCI partners, are: identify causes and key actions; co-create solutions with communities; develop a full annual cycle action plan; take coordinated action; and achieve sustainable recovery. Each step has a concrete example in the report’s summaries, and those examples show how the plan was meant to work in practice.

Identifying causes comes first, because a decline without a known cause is hard to reverse. The Evening Grosbeak is used as an example here. Summaries of the report describe it as having declined by 90 percent since 1970, with scientists working to understand why. That figure is striking, and it shows why the first step matters. If the cause is food, disease, habitat, or a combination, the response will differ. Acting without that work risks spending effort on the wrong pressure.

Co-creating solutions with communities comes second, and it reflects a shift in how conservation is described in the report. The Lesser Yellowlegs is used as an example, with conservation plans shaped with communities toward social, economic, and cultural solutions for sustainable harvesting. The point is that people who live and work in bird habitat are part of the solution, not an obstacle to it. Landowners, local communities, underrepresented communities, Indigenous communities, scientists, agencies, and decision makers are all named as partners in this step.

Developing a full annual cycle action plan comes third. Birds do not live in one place all year. A warbler that breeds in northern forest may winter in Central America or the Caribbean. A shorebird may depend on Arctic breeding grounds, mid continent stopovers, and southern wintering coasts. The Golden-winged Warbler is used as an example, with management guidelines that pinpoint limiting factors on both breeding and wintering grounds. A plan that only protects breeding habitat, while ignoring wintering or migration habitat, will miss part of the bird’s life.

Taking coordinated action comes fourth. This step means implementing solutions with communities and cross sector partners, monitoring results, and adjusting if goals are not met. The Saltmarsh Sparrow is used as an example, with prioritized actions to address sea level rise across more than a dozen states identified through the Atlantic Coast Joint Venture. Coordination across states matters for a bird whose marsh habitat spans a long coastline. No single state plan, however good, can cover the full range.

Achieving sustainable recovery comes fifth, and it is defined by results, not by effort alone. Healthy populations and increasing or stable numbers indicate successful recovery. The Kirtland’s Warbler is used as an example of this step. It was removed from the Endangered Species list in 2019 after years of collaborative conservation work. That example is included in the Road to Recovery summary as proof that recovery is possible, not as a claim that the Kirtland’s Warbler was a 2022 Tipping Point species. Keeping that distinction matters, because the example is about what recovery looks like, not about membership of the 2022 list.

Beyond the five steps, the report’s release points to everyday actions that readers can take without any specialist knowledge. The release quotes the president of the American Bird Conservancy as saying that everyone with a window can use simple solutions to prevent collisions, everyone can help green their neighborhood and avoid using pesticides that harm birds, and everyone who lives in a neighborhood can bring the issues and solutions to their community. Those actions are modest on their own, but they match the report’s wider point: birds use backyards, parks, windows, and city trees as habitat, and small changes across many places add up. Window collisions and pesticide use are also relevant to birds in winter, when food is scarcer and shelter matters more. Where Do Birds Go at Night explains roosting and shelter, and Do Birds Get Cold explains how birds cope with cold weather, both of which help readers understand why shelter and food in winter are part of conservation, not only a seasonal curiosity.

At the policy level, the report’s partners pointed to funding and partnership models that had already worked for wetlands. The North American Waterfowl Management Plan, the Federal Duck Stamp Program, Wetlands Conservation Act grants, and Joint Ventures partnerships were named as a framework with a proven record for wetland birds. The report’s argument was to apply that winning formula, adapted to each habitat, more widely and at a larger scale. The release also notes that at least 62 of the 70 Tipping Point species were already Species of Greatest Conservation Need in state plans, which meant that state wildlife action plans already provided a planning route for most of the list, if funding and coordination followed.

How to Read the List Without Misreading It

A list of 70 names invites misreading, and the 2022 report is easier to use if several common errors are avoided. First, do not treat the list as a ranking from most to least endangered. The report presents the 70 as a group defined by shared criteria, not as a league table. A species listed first in a news article is not necessarily in worse shape than a species listed last. Second, do not treat presence on the list as proof that a species will disappear in 50 years. The report’s projection is conditional: it describes what happens if nothing changes. It is a warning about a trajectory, not a prediction that conservation will fail.

Third, do not assume that a bird not on the list is safe. More than half of United States species were declining in 2022, and the On Alert group of 90 shows that many species outside the Tipping Point subset had also lost half or more of their populations. The Tipping Point list is a priority subset, not a complete list of declining birds. Fourth, do not read a national trend as a local trend. A species can decline nationally while remaining common in one region, and it can recover locally while still declining elsewhere. Local birdwatchers may see a Tipping Point species regularly and wonder why it is on the list. The answer is usually scale: the list reflects a continental trend over 50 years, not a single season in a single place.

Fifth, do not mix editions. The 2022 list has 70 species. Later editions use different methods, different groupings, and different counts, as the next section explains. A figure from a later edition should never be quoted as if it were the 2022 figure. That rule applies to this article as a whole. Every number in the sections above is tied to 2022, and every number in the next section is tied to 2025 and labeled as such.

How the 2022 List Relates to Later Editions

This article is about the 2022 edition, and that scope needs to be stated plainly because a later edition exists and uses the same Tipping Point language in a different way. The 2025 United States State of the Birds report was presented on March 13, 2025, at the 90th North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference. It is a separate edition, with its own findings, and it should not be used to update the 2022 list silently.

The 2025 report, as summarized by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, found that about a third of American birds, 229 species, were of high or moderate concern. It described 112 Tipping Point species that had lost more than 50 percent of their populations in the last 50 years. Within that group, 42 species were classified as Red Alert Tipping Point species, meaning they had perilously low populations, and a further 37 species were described as Orange Alert, meaning their populations were declining long term and those declines were accelerating. Those numbers are 2025 numbers. They do not replace the 2022 figure of 70, and they do not mean that the 2022 list was wrong. They reflect a later assessment, with updated data, updated methods, and a more detailed alert system that splits Tipping Point species into Red Alert and Orange Alert groups.

The habitat picture also changed between editions in ways that matter for readers comparing the two. In 2025, grassland birds were reported as down 43 percent since 1970, compared with 34 percent in 2022, and aridland birds were reported as down 41 percent since 1970. Waterfowl, which had increased overall since 1970, were reported in 2025 as down 20 percent since 2014. Those 2025 figures show that the wetland success story of 2022 was under new pressure by 2025, and that grassland and aridland declines had continued. They are included here only to prevent confusion. A reader who meets a 43 percent grassland figure elsewhere should know that it belongs to the 2025 edition, not to the 2022 edition that this article explains.

The right way to use both editions is to treat 2022 as a dated snapshot and 2025 as a later snapshot, not as a correction of a mistake. The 2022 list tells a reader which species were judged most urgent in October 2022, on the data available then, with trends measured mainly to 2019. The 2025 list tells a reader which species were judged most urgent in March 2025, on newer data, with a refined alert system. Both editions agree on the broad direction: many United States birds were declining, grassland and aridland birds were among the fastest declining, and wetland birds had once been the exception. Where they differ is in detail, in counts, and in the latest trend for waterfowl. Those differences are normal for a periodic assessment, and they are the reason this article dates every figure it gives.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the 2022 State of the Birds Tipping Point species list?

It is a list of 70 bird species named in the 2022 United States State of the Birds report as being at a tipping point. In the report’s summary, these species had lost 50 percent or more of their populations in the past 50 years and were on a track to lose another half in the next 50 years if nothing changed, with a further branch for species with small populations, high threats, and limited monitoring data. The list was produced by the NABCI consortium of 33 organizations and agencies and released on October 12, 2022.

Are Tipping Point species endangered?

No, not in the legal sense used in the 2022 report. The publishers’ summary states that none of the 70 was currently listed under the federal Endangered Species Act at the time of the report. Tipping Point is a scientific warning category used by the report’s authors. It means the species was judged likely to move toward endangered status without faster conservation action, not that it had already received that legal status.

How many species were on the 2022 Tipping Point list?

Seventy species. That figure is specific to the 2022 edition. The later 2025 edition reported 112 Tipping Point species, with 42 classified as Red Alert and 37 as Orange Alert. Those later numbers should not be quoted as the 2022 figure, and the 2022 figure should not be quoted as current without a date.

Which birds are on the list?

Examples named in the publishers’ release and in summaries of the report include the Rufous Hummingbird, the Golden-winged Warbler, the Black-footed Albatross, the Bobolink, the Greater Sage-Grouse, the Pinyon Jay, the Lesser Yellowlegs, the Saltmarsh Sparrow, and the Evening Grosbeak. The full list of 70 is in the report itself, grouped by habitat, and this article presents grouped examples rather than claiming to reproduce the complete checklist from secondary summaries alone.

Why are grassland birds so prominent on the list?

Grassland birds fell by 34 percent since 1970 in the 2022 report, the steepest habitat decline in that edition. Grassland loss, conversion to cropland, changes in grazing and mowing, and fragmentation of large open landscapes all affect ground nesting and open country species. Several Tipping Point species, including the Bobolink, the Sprague’s Pipit, and the Chestnut-collared Longspur, are grassland birds, which is why grassland conservation features so strongly in the report’s recommendations.

What is the difference between On Alert and Tipping Point?

On Alert is the larger group. In 2022, 90 species were identified as On Alert because they had lost half or more of their breeding populations in the past 50 years and were not listed under the Endangered Species Act. Tipping Point species are the 70 species within that wider picture judged most urgent, either because they were on track to lose another half in the next 50 years or because they had small populations, high threats, and limited data.

What did the report recommend?

The report outlined a Road to Recovery with five actions: identify causes and key actions, co-create solutions with communities, develop a full annual cycle action plan, take coordinated action, and achieve sustainable recovery. It also pointed to the wetland conservation framework, including the North American Waterfowl Management Plan, the Federal Duck Stamp Program, Wetlands Conservation Act grants, and Joint Ventures partnerships, as a proven model to adapt to other habitats. Everyday actions named in the release included preventing window collisions, greening neighborhoods, and avoiding pesticides that harm birds.

Is the 2022 list still current?

No, it is a dated snapshot from October 2022, based mainly on trends to 2019. A later edition was published in March 2025 with different counts and a refined alert system. Readers who need the latest position should check the most recent State of the Birds edition, and should always date any figure they quote from the 2022 report as a 2022 figure.

Keep reading: Bird With Red Head and Brown Body: How to Identify the Bird You Just Saw

Keep reading: Finch With Red Head: How to Identify House, Purple, and Cassin’s Finches

Keep reading: How do Birds Stay Warm in the Winter

Sources & references

• State of the Birds 2022 news room, North American Bird Conservation Initiative, release dated October 12, 2022. Available at https://www.stateofthebirds.org/2022/news-room/
• National Audubon Society, 2022 United States State of the Birds report release, October 2022. Available at https://www.audubon.org/news/2022-us-state-birds-report-reveals-widespread-losses-birds-all-habitats-except?nid=8581&origin=2016-news&site=ny
• Wildlife Management Institute, NABCI Releases State of the Birds 2022, October 17, 2022, summarizing the Road to Recovery five actions and the state Species of Greatest Conservation Need figure. Available at https://WildlifeManagement.Institute/outdoor-news-bulletin/october-2022/nabci-releases-state-birds-2022
• Cornell Chronicle, State of America's birds: Population declines continue, March 13, 2025, used only for the later edition comparison section. Available at https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2025/03/state-americas-birds-population-declines-continue