Our Favorite Fascinating Bird Behaviors From the 2024 Audubon Photo Awards

“To be is to do.” Socrates said that once. Or maybe he didn’t, since the quote has been attributed to many others as well. Birds don’t care about such questions; sometimes they seem content with simply being, but more often they are doing—and doing the most interesting things. 

That is part of what makes avian photography both challenging and endlessly fascinating. A photographer who attempts to capture the perfect portrait of a bird is likely to be interrupted, at any moment, when that bird launches into some surprising action. But with experience and quick reflexes, such interruptions can be turned into opportunities. This year’s Audubon Photography Awards produced these gems of birds caught in the act of being and doing. Check them out below, and if you haven’t yet, be sure to also see the winners of the 2024 photo awards, along with the annual Top 100 images.  

Oh, and don’t forget: Entry for the 2025 Audubon Photography Awards opens tomorrow!    

A Cuddle of Coots 

When American Coots swim across open water they may look like ducks at first, but their behavior soon reveals that they’re something else. These brash, noisy birds are very aggressive toward each other much of the time, even rearing up in the water and kicking at each other with their big feet. But at other times, they can form flocks so densely packed that there is almost no room between them. On a frozen lake in Ohio in January, as more snow drifted down, these coots had found the only remaining patch of open water. There they huddled together, practically standing on top of one another, their usual defense of personal space forgotten.

Gotta Be Here Somewhere

Many members of the blackbird family live around marshes or other aquatic sites, but Rusty Blackbirds have a special connection to shallow waters. Their summer range is centered on spruce bogs in the Boreal Forest of Canada and Alaska, and they winter mainly in swamps in the southeastern states. Although they will forage in farm fields with flocks of other blackbirds, frequently Rusty Blackbirds are found separately, back in flooded woods, wading in waters only fractions of an inch deep. There they probe in the mud with their bills or flip over wet leaves seeking fallen seeds or hidden invertebrates, as the bird in the photo is doing. 

Predator vs. Predator

The Loggerhead Shrike is a predatory songbird, using its hooked bill to dispatch rodents, lizards, and small birds, as well as insects. It earns the nickname “butcher-bird” by its habit of impaling its prey on thorns or on the barbs of barbed wire. This shrike in Florida has just captured a large dragonfly, a common green darner, and impaled it on a fence, where it is beginning to dismantle the hapless insect. Dragonflies are predators also, and to a medium-sized insect, the fast-flying green darner is a fearsome sight. But it’s no match for the hunting prowess of the shrike. 
 

Little Birds, Big Nest

The Bushtit, a tiny bird found from southwestern Canada to Guatemala, was once thought to be related to chickadees and titmice. Genetic studies have shown that its closest relatives are the long-tailed tits of Asia and Europe. When it comes to nest-building, Bushtits are strikingly different from North American chickadees, which place their simple nests inside holes in trees. Bushtits, by contrast, construct long, hanging bags up to a foot long among the foliage, as this pair has done behind the colorful blooms of a ceanothus. The nest is built of spiderwebs and plant fibers, and heavily lined with plant down, fur, or feathers. The thick nest walls have been shown to provide good insulation for the eggs and young sheltering inside.

Drum Roll, Please 

The Ruffed Grouse has a relatively weak voice. But when a male announces his claim to a territory, he doesn’t do it vocally—instead, the grouse drums the air with his wings. Standing on a log or other slight rise, he rotates his wings forward and then very rapidly backward. So fast is this backstroke that it creates a temporary vacuum, and air rushing in makes a small sonic boom. Starting with slow, measured beats, the grouse accelerates into a drumroll lasting several seconds. The resulting deep, throbbing sound carries far through the dense foliage of the forest, warning other male grouse to keep their distance and inviting females to pay a visit.

Chipping Away 

Nuthatches are famous for their ability to walk down trees headfirst, but they should also get credit for being experts on tree surfaces. With their perpetual motion of walking up, down, and around tree trunks and branches, they explore the bark and bare wood from every angle, in ways that no other bird can match. Photographer Alexander Eisengart got this unique perspective by aiming his camera straight up along a sycamore tree as a female White-breasted Nuthatch was clambering down toward him. Sycamore trunks have thin, scaly bark and scattered bare patches; in this action shot, a fragment of wood falls from where the nuthatch has just chipped it loose, in its search of hidden insects.

They Grow Up So Fast 

Brood parasites—birds that lay their eggs in the nests of other birds—are often larger than their unwitting hosts. The main brood parasite in North America, the Brown-headed Cowbird, often lays its eggs in warbler nests, even though an adult cowbird weighs three or four times as much as the average warbler. Cowbirds tend to avoid nests built inside tree holes or birdhouses, generally seeking open, cup-shaped nests among foliage, for easy access. But the Prothonotary Warbler is an exception to this pattern. It’s the only cavity-nesting warbler in eastern North America, but this choice of sites doesn’t protect it from the brood parasite, so adult Prothonotaries often wind up raising a big baby cowbird instead of their own young. 

Nothing to See Here 

The potoos of the American tropics are masters of camouflage. When a Common Potoo sits bolt upright atop a stump or vertical snag—or a handy wooden fencepost, in this case—its intricate pattern of brown and gray makes it look like an extension of its perch. It can sit there unnoticed day after day, flying out at night to catch large insects in midair. In breeding season, the female potoo doesn’t bother with building a nest; she lays her single egg in a depression on top of such a daytime perch, and she and her mate take turns incubating. The egg itself, visible here, lacks good camouflage, but it’s usually hidden under the feathers of the adult.

Plant Power 

Most songbirds, even those regarded as seed-eaters, vary their menus with many insects during at least some parts of the year. Members of the finch family are different: Many of them maintain a diet that is almost entirely vegetarian at all seasons. In the case of the House Finch, it will eat a few small insects when they’re readily available, but plant material accounts for about 97 percent of its diet overall. The type of plant material varies with geography and season. Seeds predominate in winter in cold climates, naturally, but the finches eat many small fruits and berries during late summer, and they often dine on buds or flowers in spring.

Bending Over Backward 

Male ducks usually have fancier feathers than females, but in courting season, they don’t rely only on their good looks to attract a mate. Instead, males of most species perform ritualized courtship displays. These displays vary, but among the diving duck species of North America, they usually involve the position of the head: stretching the neck, moving the head from side to side, and finally throwing the head so far back that it’s upside down and resting on the bird’s rump. For the Redhead, courtship and pair-bonding begin before the start of northward migration, in late winter. Observers anywhere in the Redhead’s wintering range may have the chance to watch the extreme head-throws of the hopeful males.

Warm-up Routine 

The broad wings of Black Vultures carry them in effortless soaring, and they also play a part in helping the big birds regulate their body temperatures. Early in the morning, especially on chilly days, the vultures often perch facing either directly toward or directly away from the sun. Spreading their wings, they soak up the sun’s rays, as members of this flock in Florida are doing on a January morning, warming up their muscles before they take to the air. Surprisingly, though, Black Vultures can use a similar posture to cool off in some situations. If they stand with wings spread in very hot weather, more body heat can escape through the thinly feathered underside of the wings.