Birds

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• Watch Animal Adélie penguin The Adélie penguin is a medium-sized penguin, about 70 centimeters tall, with a black back, a white front and a bright white ring around each eye. It breeds in summer on rocky, ice-free ground all around Antarctica, building nests of pebbles, and spends the winter far out at sea among the pack ice.
• Watch Animal African fish eagle The African fish eagle is a big eagle of Africa's lakes, rivers and coasts, with a white head, chest and tail and a chestnut-brown body. It snatches fish from the surface of the water, and its loud, ringing call is one of the best-known sounds of Africa.
• Watch Animal African penguin The African penguin is a penguin of warm, sunny coasts. It lives only in South Africa and Namibia, nests in burrows and under bushes, and hunts sardines and anchovies in the cold sea. Its numbers have fallen so far that it is now Critically Endangered, and people are working hard to protect it.
• Watch Animal American crow The American crow is an all-black bird found across much of North America, from fields and beaches to city centers. It eats almost anything, lives in close family groups, gathers in huge winter roosts, and a University of Washington study found that wild crows can recognize and remember a human face.
• Watch Animal American flamingo The American flamingo is a tall, bright pink wading bird of the Caribbean. It gets its color from pigments in the tiny water animals and algae it eats, and it feeds by filtering water through its bent bill with its head upside down. Flamingos live and nest in huge, noisy groups.
• Watch Animal American goldfinch The American goldfinch is a small finch that eats almost nothing but seeds. In summer the male is bright lemon yellow with a black cap and black wings, and in winter both males and females turn a soft olive brown. Goldfinches wait until late summer to build their nests.
• Watch 3D Animal American robin The American robin is a very familiar bird over most of North America, with a gray-brown back, a warm orange breast and a cheery song. It runs across lawns pulling up earthworms, eats lots of berries in winter, and builds a mud-lined nest for its sky-blue eggs.
• Watch Animal Andean condor The Andean condor is one of the largest flying birds in the world. With wings up to 3.2 meters across, it soars over the Andes Mountains of South America, barely flapping, as it searches for dead animals to eat. It is a vulture, nature's clean-up crew.
• Watch Animal Arctic tern The Arctic tern is a small, graceful seabird with a black cap, a red bill and red legs. Every year it flies from its nesting grounds in the Arctic to the edge of the ice around Antarctica and back again. Scientists who tracked terns from Greenland and Iceland found that they flew an average of 70,900 kilometers in one year.
• Watch 3D Animal Atlantic puffin The Atlantic puffin is a small seabird of the North Atlantic, often called the clown of the sea because of its huge, colorful bill. It spends most of its life far out on the ocean and comes ashore only in summer to nest in burrows on islands and cliff tops. Underwater, its small wings work like flippers.
• Watch 3D Animal Bald eagle The bald eagle is one of North America's biggest birds, with a white head and tail, a dark brown body and a huge yellow bill. It lives near lakes, rivers and coasts and eats mostly fish. Once rare because of hunting and pesticides, it has made an amazing comeback.
• Watch Animal Bar-tailed godwit The bar-tailed godwit is a long-billed shorebird that breeds on Arctic tundra and spends the rest of the year on mudflats far to the south. Godwits from Alaska fly non-stop across the Pacific Ocean to New Zealand and Australia, and one young bird tracked in 2022 flew at least 13,560 kilometers without landing.
• Watch Animal Barn owl The barn owl is a pale, ghostly owl with a heart-shaped face that works like a dish to collect sound. It hunts mice and voles at night over fields and grassland, finding them by hearing alone if it has to. Barn owls live on every continent except Antarctica.
• Watch 3D Animal Barn swallow The barn swallow is a small, speedy bird with a glossy blue back, a reddish throat and a long, deeply forked tail. It catches insects in the air, builds cup-shaped mud nests on barns and bridges, and makes long migrations between the Northern Hemisphere, where it nests, and the Southern Hemisphere, where it spends the winter.
• Watch Animal Bee hummingbird The bee hummingbird of Cuba is the smallest living bird: about 5.5 to 6 centimeters long and weighing only about 2 grams. It hovers in front of small flowers to sip nectar, also eats tiny insects and spiders, and lays eggs the size of peas.
• Watch Animal Black swan The black swan is the only swan in the world that is almost entirely black. It has a bright red bill with a white band near the tip, and white flight feathers that flash when it flies. It is native to Australia and New Zealand, and people have taken it to other countries too.
• Watch Animal Black-capped chickadee The black-capped chickadee is a small, curious songbird of North American woods and backyards. It hides thousands of seeds to eat later and remembers where they are, and its "chick-a-dee-dee-dee" call tells other birds how dangerous a nearby predator is.
• Watch Animal Blue jay The blue jay is a large, crested songbird of eastern and central North America, blue above and white below with a black necklace. It is clever and loud, can copy the calls of hawks, and can bury thousands of acorns in a single fall. Its acorn burying is credited with helping oak trees spread.
• Watch 3D Animal Blue-and-yellow macaw The blue-and-yellow macaw is a large parrot of South America and Panama. It is bright blue on top and golden yellow underneath, with a green forehead and a white face lined with black. It lives near swamps and rivers, cracks nuts with its strong black beak and stays with one mate for life.
• Watch Animal Blue-footed booby The blue-footed booby is a seabird of the tropical eastern Pacific, from Mexico to Peru and the Galápagos Islands. Its bright blue feet star in its courtship dance: birds with bluer feet are more likely to find a mate. It catches fish by diving into the sea from high in the air.
• Watch Animal Brown pelican The brown pelican is a large coastal bird of the Americas with an enormous bill and a stretchy throat pouch. It catches fish by diving head-first into the sea from high in the air. Brown pelicans almost disappeared from North America because of pesticides such as DDT, but after DDT was banned they made a full comeback.
• Watch Animal Budgerigar The budgerigar, or budgie, is a little parrot from the dry heart of Australia. Wild budgies are green and yellow with wavy black stripes. They are nomads that travel in flocks, they must find water every day, and they breed after good rain. Budgies are also popular pets all over the world.
• Watch Animal Burrowing owl The burrowing owl is a small, sandy-brown owl with long legs and bright yellow eyes. Unlike most owls, it lives underground, in burrows dug by prairie dogs, ground squirrels or tortoises, or sometimes by the owls themselves. It lives in open grasslands and deserts from Canada to the tip of South America.
• Watch Animal California condor The California condor is the largest wild bird in North America, a giant vulture with wings about 2.8 meters wide. In the 1980s only 22 were left. Thanks to a huge rescue effort, the US Fish and Wildlife Service counted 607 condors at the end of 2025, 392 of them flying free.
• Watch 3D Animal Canada goose The Canada goose is a big, black-necked goose with a white chinstrap, found near lakes, rivers, fields and parks across North America. Many migrate in noisy V-shaped flocks, but more and more stay all year on city lawns. People also brought Canada geese to Britain and other parts of Europe.
• Watch 3D Animal Chicken The chicken is a domesticated bird: people raise it on farms and in backyards all over the world for eggs and meat. Its wild ancestor is the red junglefowl of the forests of southern and Southeast Asia, and scientists think chickens were first domesticated about 3,500 years ago near rice fields in Southeast Asia.
• Watch Animal Chinstrap penguin The chinstrap penguin is named for the thin black band that runs under its chin from ear to ear, like a helmet strap. It breeds in huge colonies on the Antarctic Peninsula and nearby islands, raises two chicks each summer and dives for krill close to shore.
• Watch 3D Animal Cockatiel The cockatiel is a small, slim parrot with a tall crest that lives wild in the dry inland of Australia. Flocks fly fast across open country, looking for grass seeds and water, and pairs nest in hollow trees after the rain.
• Watch Animal Common blackbird The common blackbird is a thrush found in gardens, parks and woods across Europe, North Africa and parts of Asia. Males are glossy black with a bright yellow-orange bill and eye-ring, females are brown, and on summer evenings males sing a mellow, fluting song from high perches.
• Watch 3D Animal Common kingfisher The common kingfisher is a small, dazzling blue and orange bird of rivers, canals and lakes across Europe, Asia and North Africa. It watches from a perch, then dives headfirst into the water to catch small fish with its dagger-shaped bill.
• Watch Animal Common loon The common loon is a big diving bird of northern lakes. In summer it wears a black head, a striped white necklace and a checkered back. It chases fish underwater, calls with eerie wails and yodels, and spends the winter on the coast.
• Watch 3D Animal Common murre The common murre is a seabird of cold northern oceans that looks a little like a flying penguin. It dives deep to chase fish, nests in huge crowds on cliff ledges, and its chicks flutter down from the cliff to the sea before they can even fly.
• Watch Animal Common nightingale The common nightingale is a plain brown songbird with one of the most famous songs in the world. Males sing from thick bushes, often in the middle of the night, and every year the birds fly from Europe and Asia to Africa for the winter.
• Watch 3D Animal Common ostrich The common ostrich is the tallest and heaviest bird alive. It cannot fly, but it is the fastest runner on two legs, sprinting at about 70 kilometers an hour across the savannas and deserts of Africa. It also lays the biggest egg of any living animal.
• Watch Animal Common pheasant The common pheasant is a long-tailed ground bird. Its wild home is Asia, from the Caspian Sea to China and Korea, but people have taken it to Europe, North America, New Zealand and other places. Males are bright and coppery with a red face; females are mottled brown.
• Watch Animal Common raven The common raven is the biggest member of the crow family and the largest songbird. It lives across most of the Northern Hemisphere, from deserts to Arctic tundra. Ravens eat almost anything, play games in the air, and have solved puzzles that scientists designed to test how well they can plan ahead.
• Watch 3D Animal Common starling The common starling, also called the European starling, is a glossy, spotted songbird from Europe, Asia and North Africa. It is a brilliant copycat that can imitate other birds and even car alarms, and in winter huge flocks swirl through the evening sky in shows called murmurations. People also carried starlings to North America, Australia and other places, where they now live in the wild.
• Watch 3D Animal Eastern bluebird The eastern bluebird is a small thrush of open fields and parks in eastern North America, south to Central America. Males are bright blue with a rusty orange chest. Bluebirds watch from wires and fence posts, flutter down to catch insects, and nest in tree holes and in nest boxes that people put up for them.
• Watch Animal Emperor penguin The emperor penguin is the largest penguin in the world. It lives around Antarctica, and it is the only animal that breeds during the dark, freezing Antarctic winter. Fathers keep the egg warm on their feet for about two months, huddled together against the storms.
• Watch Animal Emu The emu is Australia's tallest native bird and the second-largest bird in the world, after the ostrich. It cannot fly, but it can sprint at about 48 kilometers an hour. Emus are famous fathers: the male sits on the eggs for about eight weeks without eating, then looks after the striped chicks.
• Watch 3D Animal Eurasian blue tit The Eurasian blue tit is a small, colorful songbird of woods, parks and gardens across Europe and western Asia. It hangs upside down to find caterpillars, nests in holes and nest boxes, and can lay a very large clutch of eggs once a year, timed for when caterpillars are plentiful.
• Watch Animal Eurasian eagle-owl The Eurasian eagle-owl is one of the biggest owls in the world, with wings up to about 2 meters across, big orange eyes and two tall ear tufts. It lives across Europe and Asia, nests on rocky ledges and flies silently at night to catch rats, voles, hares and birds.
• Watch 3D Animal European bee-eater The European bee-eater is one of the most colorful birds in Europe. It catches bees, dragonflies and other flying insects in midair, knocks out the stings on a branch, and digs a long tunnel in a sandy bank for its nest. Every autumn it flies to Africa for the winter.
• Watch Animal European herring gull The European herring gull is a large, noisy gull of European coasts, with a pale gray back, pink legs and a yellow bill marked with a red spot. It eats almost anything, from crabs and fish to scraps people throw away, and many now nest on rooftops in towns. Even so, its numbers are falling in many places.
• Watch Animal European robin The European robin is a small songbird of Europe's woods, parks and gardens, famous for its orange-red breast. It sings almost all year round, even at night under streetlights, and it defends its patch fiercely. Young robins have no red breast at all: they are speckled with golden brown.
• Watch Animal Gentoo penguin The gentoo penguin is the penguin with the red-orange bill, orange feet and a white band across the top of its head. It lives on the Antarctic Peninsula and on islands around Antarctica, builds nests of stones, and usually lays two eggs. National Geographic says no other diving bird swims faster.
• Watch Animal Golden eagle The golden eagle is one of the largest and fastest birds of prey in North America, and it lives across much of the Northern Hemisphere. It soars over mountains and open country on wings more than two meters wide and dives at tremendous speed to catch rabbits, hares and ground squirrels.
• Watch Animal Gray parrot The gray parrot is a gray, red-tailed parrot from the rainforests of West and Central Africa. It lives in big, noisy flocks, eats fruit and seeds, and is famous for copying sounds. Trapping for the pet trade and forest loss have made it endangered.