Best Bird Videos: 21 Favorites from Our Macaulay Library

Some video clips were gorgeous portraits in which a subtle movement adds an extra spark of life—like the intense stare of a Burrowing Owl among dry grasses in Chile. It’s so still that you can see its chest moving as it breathes, then abruptly swivels its head 180°. We also get a brilliant russet-and-yellow European Bee-eater living up to its name, with a big bumblebee in its bill.

A closeup of one of the world’s most beautiful birds, a Resplendent Quetzal, offers a long, breathtaking look at its shimmering green-gold plumage as it slowly tilts its head. Quetzals, like their trogon relatives, are sit-and-wait predators. Once it spots an insect meal, this motionless bird will explode into a flurry of wings in a pinpoint flight toward its prey.

You can count on birds to continually surprise, delight, and astound. In a riveting moment with a family of Torrent Ducks in Ecuador—we loved the way the ducklings confidently bounce along, and how the chestnut-colored female plants her feet on a boulder, mid-stream, and jumps down one of the drops.

Not to be outdone, a Black-throated Huet-huet in Chile frenetically scratches for food on the ground, yet somehow holds its head absolutely still the whole time, to maintain focus on any prey it uncovers.

We also loved the delicate way a brilliant Crimson Rosella in Australia nibbled at a fern frond. A Red-billed Oxpecker in South Africa looked like a rock climber as it traversed the face of an obliging gazelle, looking for insects. And don’t miss the groovy walk of a Solitary Snipe in South Korea, adding an extra dimension beyond what a still photo captures.

Some clips wowed us with their “degree of difficulty.” The graceful, slow-motion fluttering of a few Wilson’s Storm-Petrels belies how hard it is to capture these tiny, incessantly moving birds from the deck of a ship rolling in Antarctic waters. A full-frame view of two Eastern Kingbird fledglings is gorgeous even before their parent arrives with a meal of dragonfly—a slow-motion story told in just a dozen seconds. We also admired the framing and delightful detail of a female Allen’s Hummingbird returning to her nest in California and tucking a tiny bit of fuzz into the lining.