What Bird Is on the Oregon Driver’s License

The bird on the Oregon driver's license is the Western Meadowlark, Oregon's official state bird. It appears as a background graphic on Oregon-issued driver's licenses and ID cards, representing the state's official bird symbol just as other state imagery does on credentials across the country. If you are looking for how to draw the Massachusetts state bird, you can start by studying its shape and key markings first.

Oregon's state bird on the driver's license

Oregon has used the Western Meadowlark as its official state bird since 1927, and that designation is what drives the imagery on Oregon DMV credentials. The Oregon Department of Transportation's official sample driver's license page shows the bird as part of the card's background design, though the page's descriptive text focuses on security features rather than naming the bird species explicitly. Still, there's no mystery here: the Western Meadowlark is Oregon's designated state bird (formally recognized as the state songbird under SCR 18 in the 2017 legislative session), and state bird symbols are the standard source for this kind of credential artwork.

How to confirm it from official Oregon sources

If you want to verify this yourself rather than take anyone's word for it, there are several solid official sources to check. Oregon's state symbols are codified in Oregon Revised Statutes (ORS Chapter 186), which treats the Western Meadowlark as the official state songbird. The 2017 Oregon Legislative Summary and Senate Concurrent Resolution 18 (SCR 18, 2017 Regular Session) both explicitly name the Western Meadowlark as Oregon's official state songbird. Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) also confirms the bird's state designation on its species pages and in its published fact sheets.

• Oregon Revised Statutes, Chapter 186: codifies Oregon state symbols including the Western Meadowlark
• SCR 18 (2017 Regular Session): formally designates the Western Meadowlark as Oregon's official state songbird
• Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW): species pages confirm the Western Meadowlark's state bird status
• Oregon Encyclopedia's 'Oregon State Symbols' article: details the 1927 adoption history and the Audubon Society poll
• Oregon Blue Book (State of Oregon): lists all official state symbols

One useful nuance to know: in 2017, Oregon split its bird symbolism into two categories. The Western Meadowlark became the official state songbird, while the Osprey was separately designated as the official state raptor. This doesn't remove the meadowlark from its iconic status; it just added a second bird category. The meadowlark remains the primary state bird in public recognition and is the one represented in state imagery like driver's licenses.

What the Western Meadowlark looks like

Once you know what to look for, the Western Meadowlark is one of the more distinctive birds in North America. It's a medium-sized songbird, roughly the size of a robin, with a stocky build and a fairly short tail. The most striking feature is the bright yellow breast and belly, broken by a bold black V-shaped patch across the chest. The back and wings are intricately patterned in brown, black, and buff, giving excellent camouflage in grassland settings. The face has a yellow supercilium (the stripe above the eye) and a pale cheek, making the head pattern quite recognizable when you get a good look.

ODFW specifically notes the bird's habit of perching on fence posts along roadsides, which makes it easier to spot than many grassland species. In Oregon, you'll find Western Meadowlarks in open fields, pastures, and sagebrush country, particularly east of the Cascades. Their song is another giveaway: a clear, flute-like series of notes that carries a long distance. That distinctive voice was actually a major factor in Oregon choosing the bird, which we'll get to below.

Why Oregon chose the Western Meadowlark

The story behind Oregon's state bird choice is a good one. In 1927, the Oregon Audubon Society sponsored a statewide contest for schoolchildren to vote on a state bird. The Western Meadowlark won decisively: roughly 40,000 of the 75,000 votes cast went to the meadowlark, a margin that made the outcome clear. Governor Isaac L. Patterson officially proclaimed it Oregon's state bird based on that result.

The Oregon Encyclopedia points specifically to the bird's song as the main reason it resonated with voters. The Western Meadowlark's rich, melodic call was well-known to Oregon schoolchildren growing up near farmland, open fields, and the state's many grassland areas. It was a bird people actually heard and recognized, not just a rare or exotic species. That practical familiarity, combined with the bird's striking appearance, made it a natural favorite. Oregon is also well within the Western Meadowlark's year-round and breeding range, particularly across the eastern half of the state, so the choice reflected genuine regional wildlife.

Other states that share the Western Meadowlark

Oregon is far from alone in picking the Western Meadowlark. It's actually one of the most shared state birds in the country, claimed by six states in total. Kansas designated the Western Meadowlark (Sturnella neglecta) by statute as its official state bird. Nebraska's legislature codified it as the state bird as well. Wyoming adopted the meadowlark as its state bird on February 5, 1927, the same year Oregon did. North Dakota, Montana, and Kansas round out the list.

The pattern makes geographic sense. All six states are located in the Great Plains or the western interior of the country, right in the core of the Western Meadowlark's natural range. These are grassland and open-country states where the bird's song and bright coloring would have been a familiar, everyday presence for residents and schoolchildren voting in state-bird contests throughout the early 20th century. The overlap is a good reminder that state bird choices were often driven by what birds people actually lived alongside, not by exclusivity.

For comparison, states in the Northeast tend to pick different species reflecting their own regional wildlife. Maine's state bird is the Black-capped Chickadee, a bird that thrives in forested, colder climates very different from Oregon's open grasslands. Massachusetts also chose the Black-capped Chickadee, showing a regional clustering similar to the meadowlark states, just on the opposite end of the country. The broader pattern across all 50 states is that bird choices cluster by ecosystem and region, with the Western Meadowlark dominating the grassland west and the chickadee common in the northeastern forests. The black-capped chickadee is the bird used as Massachusetts' state bird, which is why the species name comes up in discussions about state symbols in the Northeast the chickadee.

The bottom line

The bird on the Oregon driver's license is the Western Meadowlark, Oregon's official state bird since 1927 and formally designated as the state songbird in 2017. It's confirmed by Oregon statute, ODFW, and the Oregon Blue Book. It's a bold, recognizable bird: bright yellow belly, black chest V, and a song that defines open Oregon landscapes. And if you've ever wondered why so many western states seem to share the same bird, now you know: the Western Meadowlark was simply the bird that shaped daily life across the grassland west, and six states recognized that independently within a few decades of each other. If you're asking about Maine specifically, the bird shown on Maine's license plate is different from Oregon's Western Meadowlark what bird is on the Maine license plate.