Our Favorite Fascinating Bird Behaviors From the 2025 Audubon Photo Awards

The lives of untamed birds are remarkably complicated and intriguing. As they go about discovering meals, attracting mates, elevating younger, evading predators, and generally migrating throughout continents, every type exhibits off its personal distinctive galaxy of behaviors. A scientist who begins to review one chicken species could discover, time after time, that each new discovery results in extra questions. And for individuals who take pleasure in watching all birds, the fascinations are limitless.

Some avian behaviors are fleeting, over straight away, however expert photographers captured many such actions for this 12 months’s Audubon Images Awards. Take a look at these examples, after which in the event you haven’t but, remember to see the winners of the picture awards for 2025, together with the honorable mentions and our annual gallery of Top 100 images.  And if you find yourself feeling impressed by this superb pictures, the 2026 Audubon Images Awards are actually open for entry. 

Thanks For All of the Fish (above)

Seabirds that eat fish receive them in numerous methods. Brown Pelicans plunge-dive from the air into the water, scoop up an enormous pouchful of water containing just a few fish, then drain the water out the aspect of the invoice earlier than swallowing the fish. Brown Noddies, sleek tropical terns, often fly low over the water, swooping right down to delicately choose up prey on the water’s floor. However within the Galapagos, noddies have discovered a neater tactic: Keep shut and snatch up any fish that escape whereas the massive birds are draining water from their invoice pouches. The noddies have a cushty place to sit down whereas they wait, and the pelicans don’t appear to thoughts. 

I Received You One thing 

Most Mourning Dove nests look woefully flimsy—as in the event that they have been informal affairs, carelessly thrown collectively. However in truth, a mated pair works collectively to construct this humble construction, utilizing an environment friendly system. As soon as a basis of some twigs has been laid, the feminine settles down within the heart of it whereas the male flies off to search out extra supplies. When he returns with one other twig or rootlet or vine tendril, typically he stands on the feminine’s again whereas presenting it to her. The feminine takes his new discover and works it into the rising nest. Regardless of their slapdash nests and their behavior of elevating solely two younger per brood, Mourning Doves are amongst our most plentiful birds. 

Starling Wars

For birds that nest in holes in timber, housing shortages loom as potential threats. Members of the woodpecker household, just like the Northern Flicker, can excavate their very own holes. However that’s no assure of a secure area, as a result of different cavity-nesting birds could attempt to steal these spots. For the glint, a frequent perpetrator is the European Starling. This invasive non-native chicken could be very aggressive, typically succeeding in driving a flicker pair away from a newly accomplished nest cavity. Some researchers have discovered that starlings took over greater than 60 % of the glint nests inside a examine space. The glints can dig new holes for themselves, in fact, however the delay could trigger them to lift fewer younger. 

Me First! 

Widespread in open habitats in South America, the little Picui Floor Dove additionally adapts readily to cities and cities. Like different pigeons and doves, adults of this species feed their younger with “crop milk,” a thick, protein-rich secretion from the liner of the higher a part of their alimentary tract. When simply hatched, the nestling doves obtain this fluid in pure kind; as they develop, it contains an growing proportion of seeds. The dad and mom proceed to feed them this fashion for a number of days after they depart the nest. On this picture, two lately fledged Picui Floor Doves are insistently vying for consideration (and feeding) from the beleaguered grownup within the heart. 

Observe Prey

For any chicken of prey, the primary few months of life could be difficult. It takes time to grasp the talents wanted to seize residing, shifting prey, and the younger predators could typically go hungry in the course of the studying interval. Younger Pink-tailed Hawks proceed to get virtually all their meals from their dad and mom for at the least 4 weeks after they depart the nest, and it could be six to seven weeks earlier than they’ve notable success in catching their very own prey—principally rodents and different small creatures. Within the meantime, they hone their strikes by diving on sticks, rocks, and different objects. This younger Pink-tail isn’t going to eat this apple, however choosing it up and carrying it offers worthwhile follow.

Good Payments 

Puffins are most well-known for his or her giant, colourful payments. These large honkers have their sensible aspect: When an grownup Tufted Puffin is flying again to feed its single younger within the nest burrow, it will probably carry a number of small fishes per bill-load, often greater than 20 at a time. However the dimension and colours of the invoice additionally perform as ornament for the mating season. The invoice appears smaller and darker in the course of the winter, as a result of some colourful outer sheaths are shed in fall, rising again in spring. These two adults, carrying their summer season greatest, are engaged in a courtship conduct known as billing (appropriately sufficient), wherein the female and male face one another and rub their payments collectively repeatedly.
 

Tradition Conflict 

Sanderlings lead a double life. Their breeding vary spans the intense north, virtually solely above the Arctic Circle. However earlier than summer season’s finish, these pale little sandpipers forsake the tundra and head south to spend a lot of the 12 months alongside sandy seashores all around the world. On the central coast of Chile, this Sanderling had simply caught some alternative invertebrate when it additionally caught the eye of a younger Brown-hooded Gull. Like many gulls, this species of southern South America is adaptable and opportunistic in its feeding habits, commonly chasing different birds to steal their meals. On this case, the photographer stories that the Sanderling managed to flee with its prize.

 Restricted Actual Property  

Geese and woodpeckers are two chicken teams which may appear unlikely to return in battle. However for the Acorn Woodpecker and Wooden Duck, in sure conditions, clashes are virtually inevitable. Colonies of Acorn Woodpeckers harvest acorns by the a whole lot, stashing them in tiny holes drilled in useless wooden, and fiercely defend these shops towards all potential thieves. Wooden Geese will not be agile sufficient to raid these arboreal larders, however they go to the treetops for a unique cause: In contrast to different geese, they place their nests in tree cavities, often far above the bottom. This pair, looking for a web site for his or her subsequent nest, occurred to land close to one of many Acorn Woodpeckers’ treasured meals shops, drawing a right away response from the house owners. 

Gotta Be In Right here Someplace

The rail household encompasses two very various kinds of water birds: typical rails, which run round in marshes like slender chickens, and coots, often seen swimming and appearing very very like geese. The Widespread Gallinule is someplace in between— extra aquatic than rails, extra terrestrial than coots. The gallinule within the picture has its head buried within the stump of a California fan palm, and it’s troublesome to say precisely what it’s doing. It might need been in search of meals (the species has a diversified food regimen together with seeds, snails, and bugs), however because the photographer steered, it additionally may have been trying out a attainable nest web site. Often, gallinules nest atop stumps or different raised objects. 

Get Off My Garden 

Till just a few a long time in the past, the vireo household and the American warbler household have been regarded as shut kin, with warblers coming instantly after vireos on the official checklists. More moderen genetic research have proven they don’t seem to be intently associated in any respect. Their superficial similarities replicate their comparable existence, as small songbirds that commonly glean tiny bugs from foliage. This aggressive Warbling Vireo may be reacting to some instinctive sense that the Yellow Warbler is a possible rival for meals. An easier and extra probably clarification is that many wild birds are simply naturally feisty, generally chasing or harassing one another for no specific cause.

Unusual Birdfellows 

Crested Caracaras and Turkey Vultures are totally unrelated, and so they look it, however they’re typically discovered collectively. Caracaras are odd members of the falcon household, feeding on all kinds of small, slow-moving prey, however a significant merchandise on their menu is carrion—the identical useless animals relished by vultures. From Florida and the Southwest south by way of the American tropics, wherever vultures have gathered at carrion, a Crested Caracara is more likely to be part of them. As a extra aggressive chicken, the caracara can dominate just a few vultures and push them away; if there are too many to dominate, it slips in and feeds quietly amongst them, benefiting from the vultures’ larger skill to tear open powerful carcasses. 

Conflict of Titans

Bald Eagles are totally able to being mighty hunters. A lot of the time, nevertheless, they act as scavengers, feasting on carrion or useless fish, placing their warrior instincts to work by combating over scraps with different eagles. On this picture, two eagles conflict over an elk carcass in Montana. The darker chicken, a juvenile Bald Eagle lower than one 12 months outdated, seems to be displacing a white-headed grownup, suggesting that age is not any benefit in such an encounter. Feminine eagles are bigger than males, and this can be a younger feminine pushing an grownup male. In the meantime, a Black-billed Magpie, slipping in to steal some morsels, correctly chooses to get out of the best way. 

Can’t Contact This 

Though males of a number of North American hummingbirds put on stable iridescent colours on the throat, solely the smallest species has a sample of stripes there. The magenta stripes of the male Calliope Hummingbird look mildly ornamental more often than not, however they play an enormous function in courtship. Like many bigger hummers, the male Calliope performs aerial shows in breeding season, together with hovering and diving, partly to drive away rival males. When performing for a feminine, although, he hovers in entrance of her with a loud buzzing hum, splaying his throat stripes out to the fullest. If she’s sufficiently impressed, the 2 will mate. Then she goes off to construct a nest and lift younger, whereas he goes in search of one other fling. 

Tender Moments 

Black Vultures could have spooky reputations, however they’re truly clever, gregarious creatures with sturdy social bonds. When at relaxation, they spend a lot time preening and cleansing their feathers—or preening one another. This twin exercise, known as allopreening, could contain members of a mated pair, or mum or dad and offspring, or siblings from the identical brood. Every chicken concentrates on the opposite’s head and neck, areas that the person can’t attain for itself. These two Black Vultures have been perched on a metropolis rooftop in Colombia on a quiet morning, rigorously tending to one another. The higher vulture has momentarily closed its nictitating membrane, the translucent “third eyelid” that helps to guard a chicken’s eyes.