Get Ready to Melt Over These Sweet Photos of Baby Birds

Spring is an exciting time for birds, the season when they start to pair up, build nests, and raise their young. One of the highlights of the Audubon Photography Awards is seeing photos that provide a peek into this part of a bird’s life cycle—and the 2024 awards were no exception. The following 16 images, selected from a bounty of submissions, were too delightful to keep to ourselves. From fluffball owls to gangly pelicans, these shots also showcase the diversity of the avian world and how young birds and their parents adapt, survive, and thrive in a changing world. 

Chicks and nesting birds are highly sensitive to disturbance. The photographers featured here noted the steps they took to keep their subjects safe, including using telephoto lenses and keeping an appropriate distance. Protecting the birds’ well-being not only supports the species, some of which are at risk, but also keeps birds relaxed, allowing photographers to capture stunning displays of natural behavior.

And there’s more to explore. The 2024 awards delivered our usual selection of jaw-dropping photos and videos, while our new category, Birds in Landscapes, illustrates the links between birds and their habitats. Peruse all of these shots in our winners’ gallery, as well as Audubon’s Top 100.

But first, scroll on to see some of the cutest submissions from 2024. 

Eared Grebe (above) 

Soon after hatching, Eared Grebe chicks hop onto their parents’ backs. They’ll spend several days tucked among the feathers until their own plumage becomes more waterproof. In these initial days, male and females work tirelessly: One carries the chicks, while the other forages for fish and insects to feed their young. In this photo, Karen Bilgrai Cohen captured a female grebe in Mountain View, California, offering its chicks an invertebrate treat, with her mate off to find more food.

Burrowing Owl

A tiny Burrowing Owl stands at the feet of its parent. These fluffy chicks spend the first two weeks of their life inside burrows, which were built by prairie dogs, ground squirrels, and armadillos. As they grow, the baby Burrowing Owls come to the surface, spending their time sitting at the entrance of their burrow. To pass the time, they scratch at the dirt and play with one another, waiting for their next meal to arrive. Photographer Mary Lundeberg watched this dark-eyed parent preen its chick, backlit by the rising sun.

Hooded Merganser

Within days of hatching, young Hooded Mergansers must perform a death-defying jump from their tree cavity nests to the forest floor below. For the next few weeks, these chicks follow their mother while foraging for their own food. Female Hooded Mergansers like this one, photographed by James Fatemi, often lay their eggs in the nests of other individuals of their own species—or in the nests of Wood Ducks. As a result, some Hooded Mergansers end up giant broods, caring for 40 chicks or more at a time.

Great Blue Heron

In this dramatic photo, two adolescent Great Blue Herons nearly the size of their parent fight to be fed. They will beg with raucous calls and bites at the adult’s beak until their parent to regurgitates its catch into the mouths of one or both of the young. Douglas DeFelice captured the noisy ritual in a breeding colony in Palm Harbor, Florida. Heron breeding colonies are dense and can contain up to 500 nests, making them hotspots of activity during the breeding season.
 

Piping Plover

Piping Plovers are critically endangered shorebirds. In Nova Scotia, where Jason Dain took this photo, only 60 breeding pairs remain. These small, sandy-colored birds face many threats: In addition to habitat loss from coastal development, Piping Plover nests are easily raided by predators, squished by ATVs, or abandoned if humans get too close. As a result, conservationists at many breeding sites fence off sections of beach where a breeding pair settles down, to minimize disturbance and give the family their best chance at survival.

Sandhill Crane

Less than a week old and pushing two feet tall, these two crane colts face an uncertain future. Although Sandhill Cranes are not endangered across their whole range, the Florida Sandhill Crane is listed as threatened in the state due to habitat loss from wetland development. In fact, photographer Mary Lundeberg found this family of cranes nesting on a pond surrounded by housing development. To take this photo, she knelt on the wet grass and used a telephoto lens to give the colts plenty of space.

Tree Swallow

Natural tree cavities and old woodpecker holes are the favorite nesting sites of Tree Swallows, as documented here by photographer Kent Stuart. Competition for these sites is often fierce. Adults will duel over prime spots with other swallows and other bird species in early spring. By late spring or summer, when chicks are ready to fledge, Tree Swallow young wait patiently at the entrance of the cavity. When their parent approaches, they open their yellow mouths wide to be filled with a tasty insect.

Barred Owl

Two fluffy Barred Owl chicks snuggle together among the mossy trees in Charleston, South Carolina, captured here by Cami Marculescu. The female is likely nearby. She sticks around to watch the chicks while the male hunts for food. Barred Owls are thought to mate for life, and will raise between one and five young each year. The chicks often leave their nests, typically in cavities, before they can fly freely. Until then, they climb and jump from branch to branch, take short test flights, and flap vigorously to train their muscles so that they can one day fly and hunt for themselves.

Northern Bobwhite

A resident of grassy fields and open forests of eastern North America, the Northern Bobwhite is very round and very social. Their groups, called coveys, can number up to more than 20 birds. But during the breeding season, bobwhite roam in tighter-knit family groups. Bobwhite chicks are surprisingly independent, finding their own insects and seeds to munch on without much help. Sometimes they’ll stop for a water break with their family, as photographed here by Donald Wuori.

Emperor Penguin 

Raising an Emperor Penguin chick is a lot of work. Starting in March, males and females spend months incubating their egg and brooding the chick, taking turns balancing the young penguin on their feet and warming it with their flexible brood pouch. As the chick develops, it grows a coat of fluffy grayish blue feathers, which keeps it cozy in the Antarctic chill as it plays with its neighbors, shown here in this photograph by Deena Sveinsson. Young Emperor Penguins are vulnerable to predators like petrels and skuas, so they usually stick close to their colony and seek safety in numbers.

Pileated Woodpecker

In late spring, Jocelyn Anderson noticed this pair of Pileated Woodpecker chicks peeking out from their nest near a horse ranch in Michigan. North America’s largest woodpecker, full-grown Pileated Woodpeckers are almost the size of a crow. During breeding season, these hefty birds use their sharp beaks to carve out tree cavities to nest in. In future seasons, this site could be used by swifts, owls, or even bats.

Brown Pelican

At a breeding colony on Smith Island in Maryland, a pair of adult Brown Pelicans snuggles up against their chick, as pictured by Erica Kavadias. Brown Pelicans are attentive parents. The female constructs the nest with materials gathered by the male. Both parents incubate the egg using the warmth from their webbed feet. Once hatched, the pair feeds their young together, first with regurgitated fish, then with whole fish. Pelican parents keep up the care for three long months, after which the chicks fledge.
 

Common Potoo

Female Common Potoos do not make sophisticated nests. Instead, they lay a single egg on top of a stump or broken branch, where both parents take turns incubating. As the downy chick grows, it learns the ways of the potoo, posing in a distinctive upright position to blend into its perch. Photographer Faith Barton found this potoo and its chick on a fencepost in Costa Rica. Their large mouths, which they put to use scooping up flying insects when foraging at night, are slightly agape from the midday heat. 

Wild Turkey

Though they can run and fly, Wild Turkeys prefer to walk. These hefty game birds breed across most of North America. Males gobble and display to attract females and intimidate the competition. Females then build their nests on the ground underneath thick vegetation. After hatching, tiny turkey chicks, like the one pictured here by Linda Scher, will tail behind their mother for four to five months before striking out on their own.

Great Egret

Elegant members of the heron family, Great Egrets stand out with their sleek white plumage, black legs, and, during breeding season, vivid green lores. Their feathers were once prized possessions, sought by plume hunters in the 19th and early 20th centuries, which almost pushed the species to extinction. Great Egrets have since recovered, thanks to conservation laws including the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act. These two dinosaur-like chicks, captured by Mike Jameson at a rookery in St. Augustine, Florida, are a testament to that recovery.

Canada Goose

Canada Geese are protective parents. In early spring, even before they’ve laid any eggs, they start defending their breeding territories, threatening other geese and intruders with hissing, head pumping, and honking. The female then builds and incubates the nest, while the male stands guard. When the chicks hatch, young geese remain with their parents for their entire first year like this startled family photographed by Caroline Yoachim. Sometimes, they’ll join other families, forming large “gang broods” that can contain more than 100 goslings.