With so many beautiful birds in the world, we have selected just a small selection. So, let’s get started and look at the small few that we have below.
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Blue Jay
Blue Jays are ten inches long and eat nuts and seeds, but they are also known for eating small insects.
They are most easily recognized by their noisy calls, white underside, and steady flight.
They like peanuts, sunflower seeds, and suet, and they will eat from birdbaths and feeders that have acorns.
They build a cup nest in the branch of a tree, brood, and stay with their parents for 8-12 days after hatching.
Their plumage is lavender-blue to mid-blue with a white face and off-white throat. It has a black neck, eyes, bill, and legs.
They migrate in flocks, depending on the weather conditions and food sources. Some individuals are present throughout winter in all parts of their range.
They have a wide range of habitats and can adapt to human activity with relative ease.
Blue jays are noisy, bold, and aggressive passerines preyed upon by hawks and owls. It flies at a moderately slow speed, which makes it easy prey for predators.
Red Crested Turaco
Red-crested Turacos are 20 inches long, weigh less than one pound, and are native to Africa.
The Red-Crested Turaco is a medium size bird that has a red eye, green body, yellowish-green breast and neck, and green beak with a yellow tip on it.
They eat a range of insects, fruits, nuts, leaves, flowers, seeds, acacia, and figs. It also eats poisonous berries.
They are monogamous, lay 2-3 eggs, and are found in Angola in West Africa. Their nest is found 5-20m (16.4-65.6ft) above the ground in a tree.
Golden Pheasant
Golden Pheasants are a bird native to China. They have long tail feathers and a golden crest.
The adult male is 90 – 105 cm long, with a bright orange “cape” covering his face.
Males have a golden-yellow crest, orange ruff or cape, and rusty-tan face, throat, chin, and sides of the neck, green upper back, blue tertiaries, and dark red scapulars.
The yellow-billed spoonbills eat grain, leaves, and invertebrates and roost in trees. They are able to burst upwards at great speed if startled.
Golden pheasants have a metallic call, lay 8 to 12 eggs, and will incubate these for around 22 – 23 days. They eat berries and other types of vegetation.
Painted Bunting
The painted bunting is a threatened species of bird found in North America.
Two subspecies of painted buntings exist, nominate P. c. ciris and P. c. pallidior.
The male is the most beautiful bird in North America and is easily identified by its colors. It can be difficult to see since it camouflages well.
Painted Buntings have two molts in their first autumn; the first gives them the auxiliary plumage, and the second, the formative plumage.
They breed in dense vegetation and are common in the U.S. and Canada. It lives in thickets, woodland edges with riparian thickets, shrubbery, and brushy areas and is also often found along roadsides and in suburban areas.
They are a little shy and secretive but can be fairly approachable were habituated to bird feeders. They engage in several display behaviors to advertise their territories and in agonistic conflicts with other males.
Painted buntings eat seeds, but during the breeding season, they eat invertebrates such as spiders and grasshoppers.
Painted buntings are monogamous, typically nest in low, dense vegetation, and lay three to four eggs per brood. They are usually parasitized by cowbirds but can be predatory at the nest of eggs, young, and brooding females.
The male painted bunting is protected by the U.S. Migratory Bird Act and is primarily declining in the east.
Flamingo
Flamingos are pink and have beautiful feathers. They eat shrimp and algae and can stand over 4 feet tall and weigh up to 7 pounds.
They usually stand on one leg, tucking the other beneath the body. They do this to conserve body heat, but the behavior could also be observed in warm water, and it also takes place in birds that do not normally stand in water.
Flamingos are typically a vibrant pink color but can be white or pale if they are malnourished or fed too little carotene.
Their arcuate (curved) bills allow them to scoop up prey from the ground, and the large tongue is used to separate food from mud and silt. The pink color of flamingos comes from beta carotene, which is broken down by liver enzymes.
These birds live in colonies with thousands of members. During the breeding season, male and female birds stand together and display to each other.
They form strong pair bonds and territorially defend their nesting territories. They form nests on mudflats and defend their nests aggressively.
The chicks are fed with crop milk that is produced by the female and the male.
The first six days are spent in the nesting sites. Then the chicks begin to leave the nests and congregate in large crèches.
Flamingos were worshipped by the Moche people and are the national bird of the Bahamas.
Hyacinth Macaw
Hyacinth Macaws are found in South America. They are recognizable by their bright blue feathers, yellow beak, and strong beak.
They are the largest macaw and the largest flying parrot, though it is endangered in the wild due to habitat loss and the trapping of wild birds for the pet trade.
They can crack coconuts, macadamia nuts, and the hard acuri nut, which they feed on only after it has been digested by cattle. The bird also eats fruits, nuts, nectar, and various kinds of seeds.
The hyacinth macaw is found in three main areas in South America and may occur in smaller populations in other regions.
Their habitat has been reduced due to agriculture and plantations, and it has been hunted for food and its feathers used in headdresses.
Quetzal
The Quetzal is a small bird that is found in forests from Mexico to Panama. It has beautiful colors and eats fruit.
The resplendent Quetzal is the national bird of Guatemala and can grow up to 13 inches long.
They are brightly colored birds that feed on fruits, berries, insects, and small vertebrates.
None of the quetzal species are threatened by the IUCN, except the eared and resplendent quetzal.
Atlantic Puffin
The Atlantic Puffin eats crustaceans and fish and is a parrot-like bird with a bright orange beak in the winter.
It is most commonly found on the Westman Islands in Iceland.
Puffins have black crowns and backs, pale grey cheek patches, and white underparts. It molts while at sea and loses brightly colored facial characteristics in the winter, returning in the spring.
A puffin chick hatches in a burrow in a coastal cliff. It feeds on whole fish and swims away from the shore after 6 weeks.
They live on islands without predators and are the official bird symbol for the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Puffins are stout, black-and-white, with a brown or very dark blue beak, white breast, white belly, and black wings and tail. They are 28 to 30 cm (11 to 12 in) in length and stand 20 cm (8 in) high.
The beak is long, triangular, and orange-red on one side and slate grey on the other. It is yellow at the base and wrinkled at the joint of the two mandibles.
The Atlantic puffin eats mainly fish and shrimp, but also shrimp, sand eels, crustaceans, mollusks, and polychaete worms when fishing. It can reach considerable depths and stay submerged for up to a minute, and can eat fish as long as 18 cm (7 in) – sand eels, herring, sprats, and capelin.
Stork-billed Kingfisher
The Stork-billed Kingfisher is a large bird found in Southeast Asia and India.
The stork-billed kingfisher has a greenback, blue wings and tail, olive-brown head, a very large bill and legs, and is a very noisy bird. It is widely but sparsely distributed in the tropical Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia.
This species of bird can be found in well-wooded habitats near lakes, rivers, or coasts.
Peafowl
The Peafowl is a large bird native to India that weighs up to 14 pounds and stands 4 feet tall.
The Indian Peafowl, the green Peafowl, and the Congo peafowl are all part of a large family of bird species.
Peacocks’ colorful and conspicuous features may have evolved to attract females or to signal their fitness.
The Indian peacock has blue and green plumage, and both have a crest atop their head. Females have duller colors and are smaller than males.
Indian peafowl and Congo peacocks have different plumage, and chicks are cryptically colored, with darker brown or light tan patches, dirt white ivory, and more.
During the breeding season, males display intricate displays that catch the attention of peahens. This is due to the redundant signal hypothesis, which explains that the addition of multiple signals enhances the reliability of the mate.
Wild Peafowl eats mostly plants, flower petals, seed heads, insects, and small mammals and will also eat snakes.
They enjoy protein-rich food, including meat, cheese, cooked rice, and sometimes cat food.
Rainbow Lorikeet
Rainbow Lorikeets have bright orange beaks and chests, blue heads, and green wings.
The rainbow lorikeet lives in the rainforest, coastal bush, and woodland areas of Australia.
The rainbow lorikeet is split into two subspecies: the septentrionalis and the moluccanus. The red-collared lorikeet is included in the rainbow lorikeet.
It’s a colorful parrot with green wings and back, a blue belly, orange/yellow chest, and green thighs and rump. It has a black beak that gradually brightens to orange in adults.
They are social birds that travel in pairs and defend their feeding and nesting areas.
They feed mainly on fruit, pollen, and nectar and have a tongue with a papillate appendage for gathering pollen and nectar from flowers. They are also important pollinators of coconuts in Melanesia.
They are found in Australia and breed from late winter to early summer. They usually nest in hollowed-out trees, holes in the ground on predator-free islets, and may breed in the same tree with other birds.
They are a pest in many areas, such as fruit orchards, as they often fly in groups and strip trees containing fresh fruit.
Keel-billed Toucan
Keel-billed Toucans are large bird that eats fruit, insects, lizards, eggs, and baby birds.
They are found in tropical jungles from southern Mexico to Colombia.
Keel-billed toucans have orange and green sides to their bill and two toes facing forwards and two facings backward.
It lives in tropical and subtropical rainforests. It lives in holes in trees and tucks its tail and beak under its body while sleeping.
They live in small groups of six to twelve individuals, often share a living quarter with other groups. They play ball by throwing fruit into each other’s mouths.
The male and female take turns incubating the eggs, feeding the chicks after hatching, and the chicks stay in their nest for 8 to 9 weeks until their bills develop.
Northern Oriole
The Northern Oriole, with its black and orange chest, is a bird that lives in northern Canada.
They can be found high in the trees near homes and parks and make a fine nest from slender fibers.
They seek out ripe fruit and nectar-bearing flowers. They like oranges and jelly, and you can attract them to your yard by hanging orange halves and hanging sugar water-filled feeders.
African Crowned Crane
The African Crowned Crane is a majestic bird that is native to Eastern and Southern Africa.
They are large birds with a bright red throat pouch and long, slender legs with golden feathers. The sexes are similar, but the male is slightly larger.
The crowns of the black-crowned crane and the crowns of the white-crowned crane can roost in trees.
It lives in dry savannah in Sub-Saharan Africa and nests in slightly wetter habitats, though it is sedentary nearer the tropics.
They perform a breeding display of dancing, bowing, and jumping and are found in flocks of 30 to 150 birds.
Crowned cranes eat both plants and animals and spend their days looking for food. They also sleep in the trees at night.
Bohemian Waxwing
They are native to North America, Europe, and Asia and have bright yellow heads and blue wings.
The Bohemian waxwing is a starling-sized bird with a pointed crest. It is found in northern forests and has mainly buff-grey plumage and white wingtips.
The Bohemian waxwing is a starling-sized bird that has a conspicuous crest and a red wingtip. It has a yellow stripe on its wings and a red tail that ends in a yellow band with a broad black border.
A female has slightly less distinct wing markings than the male and is paler, greyer, and duller in appearance than the nominate form.
It breeds in coniferous forests, breeding north and south of the U.S. border in the Rocky Mountains.
They are primarily fruit eaters but also consume insects during the breeding season. They eat mostly insects and some spiders, and sometimes birds.
Broad-Billed Hummingbird
The Broad-billed Hummingbird is small and can fly up to 78 beats per second. It’s a brightly colored bird with a red bill and other names like Pico Ancho and Colibri.
A small, metallic green hummingbird with a long reddish bill that has a black tip.
The male makes a rapid chi-dit while perching or in flight.
It prefers to live along streamside and oak woodlands, and along the Pacific coast, it is found at nearly every elevation above sea level.
In the Southwest United States through Mexico, the broad-billed hummingbird is found in desert canyons and low mountain oak woodlands.
Scarlet Macaw
The scarlet macaw is a large red, yellow, and blue parrot of Central and South America. It is a popular aviary bird in aviculture and is the national bird of Honduras.
It can be divided into two subspecies, the South American and Central American scarlet macaw.
It’s a large macaw with a pointed tail, a blue rump and tail-covert feathers, and yellow upper wings with blue and gold underwing feathers.
The scarlet macaw has bare white skin around the eye, tiny white feathers on the face and a dark eye, bright yellow eyes, and loud, throaty squawking.
They communicate primarily by honking, though they may mimic human speech.
They are monogamous birds that lay two or three eggs at a time, and their chicks leave their nest after about 90 days.
They are found in humid lowland subtropical rain forests, open woodlands, river edges, and savannas in Central America and in isolated regions on the Pacific Coast in Costa Rica.
Wood Duck
The Wood Duck, Aix sponsa, is a species of bird native to North America. They are black-winged and dark blue-green in color.
The male has an eye-ring and a throat that is whitish, with a distinctive white flare down the neck.
It breeds in wooded swamps, marshes, and creeks in the eastern U.S., western U.S., southern Canada, and Mexico, and is a duck, not a goose, that can produce two broods in a single season.
Female birds lay between 7 and 15 eggs that incubate for 30 days.
Ducklings tend to climb to the nest opening and jump down. They will eat berries, acorns, and seeds and occasionally eat insects.
Lilac Breasted Roller
The Lilac Breasted Roller is a small, lilac-colored bird that eats insects and small amphibians.
It prefers open woodland and savanna and is found in sub-Saharan Africa. They nest in tree holes with 2 – 4 eggs and defend their nest aggressively from raptors and other birds.
They are robust, large-headed birds with a lilac throat and breast. The throat and breast are rufous-tawny with buffy-white streaks, and the cheeks and ear coverts are lilac-rufous.
The average racket-tailed roller is 104 grams, has a wingspan of 50 to 58 cm, and has syndactyl feet. They are usually confused with Abyssinian rollers.
They can be found in eastern and southern Africa, including Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and northeastern South Africa. They are also found at sea level and up to 2,000 meters above sea level.
Lilac-breasted rollers live in savannah habitats with scattered trees and shrubs and may enter sub desert steppe and open grassland. They avoid roads in protected areas and may be seen swooping in for easy prey.
They eat a variety of animals and insects, including spiders, scorpions, snails, and small birds, and they are a perch hunter.
Lilac-breasted rollers hunt terrestrial prey and will carry larger prey back to a perch to dismember it.
