red state blue, blue state; yellow state, green state

i don’t want to get all political right now, so i will announce this quickly and be on my way: no longer are the official state birds of the united states either red (northern cardinal) or blue (eastern bluebird). there are other colours (and other directions) to add to the mixing bowl. consider the 6 purple states that have adopted the western meadowlark as their official bird. there are also the 5*  (southern) green states that selected the (northern) mockingbird. and thus our former two bird system is now an avian oligarchy.

but seriously states: there are over 1.3 trillion different species of birds native to north america, would it kill you to pick something a little more original and not just copy off of your neighbor? also: when you show off a picture of your state bird and it’s a red cardinal, you are being unimaginative and—frankly—sexist (in birds, sex is determined not by the presence or absence of external genitalia but by the colour of the feathers).

another bird map.

*breaking news (as of 1948): the state bird of south carolina is no longer the northern mockingbird—it is the carolina wren.