It’s no secret that birds are stunning creatures. Some have bold, colorful feathers while others have unique feather structures to help them stand out. With over 11,000 bird species in the world, there are tons of beautiful birds to admire. So, what are the most beautiful birds in the world?
Here are the 15 Most Beautiful Birds in the World
It can be overwhelming to look through every bird species to decide your favorite. So, we’ve compiled a list of 15 gorgeous birds for you to admire.
1. Black-backed Dwarf Kingfisher
The Black-backed Dwarf Kingfisher, also known as the Oriental Dwarf Kingfisher, has colors like a bird you would find in a cartoon. Its bold blue, yellow, and pink feathers are stunning enough to catch anyone’s eye, which is why it’s one of the most beautiful birds in existence. These birds primarily live across Southeast Asia in dense forests near bodies of water.
These beautiful birds hunt by sitting on a low perch, waiting for movement, and swooping down to catch the prey. Their swift, sudden actions allow them to quickly catch prey without their bright colors giving them away. They primarily feed on small invertebrates like insects and spiders, but they may occasionally eat small fish, frogs, and lizards too.
Despite being skilled hunters, these birds are small, measuring only 4.9 to 5.5 inches in length, a good portion of which is their long, orange bills. When it’s time to lay eggs, these birds create tunnels leading to a nesting chamber, which is where they lay and care for their clutch of three to seven eggs.
2. Resplendent Quetzal
(Beautiful National Bird of Guatemala)
The Resplendent Quetzal is the national bird of Guatemala, and it was also a sacred animal in ancient Aztec and Mayan cultures. So, it’s clear that many people have recognized this bird’s beauty. With a bold red belly and bright green feathers, including a long, majestic tail, you can find this bird in forests from Southern Mexico to Panama.
This stunning bird grows 14 to 16 inches long, but the long tail streamers on the males, which grow anywhere from 12 to 39 inches long, can make the birds look larger. During mating season, the males fly back and forth between trees to show off their flowing tail feathers. The females prefer the males with the longest feathers. When they’re not breeding, these birds typically live alone.
Resplendent Quetzals primarily eat fruit. They will hover in the air as they choose the best fruit off branches before swallowing them whole and regurgitating the pits. Chicks often eat insects in addition to fruits. Even though these birds have gorgeous green feathers, their eggs are a bold blue color.
3. Golden Pheasant
Golden Pheasants have a rainbow of brightly colored feathers, including yellow, red, orange, blue, and green. If the sun shines on their feathers for too long, their bold plumage could become faded. Luckily, the mountainous forests of Western China give them plenty of shade to protect their beautiful feathers.
Only males display this vibrant plumage. Females are mostly brown with shorter tail feathers. During mating season, females prefer the males with the boldest colors. Golden Pheasants can lay 10 to 15 eggs per clutch, which have a simple off-white exterior.
While these birds can fly short distances, they can be clumsy in the air and spend most of their time on the ground. While on the ground, they forage for a wide range of fruits, grains, and leaves. They typically roost in the trees when sleeping and avoiding predators.
4. Victoria Crowned Pigeon
(Beautiful Ground-Dwelling Bird)
Victoria Crowned Pigeons are one of the most beautiful birds in the world because of their large crown of blue feathers on top of their heads. This species was named after British Monarch Queen Victoria, which only adds to the elegance of these large pigeons. These ground-dwelling birds live in swamp forests across New Guinea.
These pigeons typically grow 24 to 28 inches long and weigh about five pounds. Males and females look almost identical, but males are slightly larger. To attract females, males sway their heads back and forth to show off their crown feathers while also fanning their tail feathers. The females usually only lay a single white egg, which is about the size of a chicken egg.
While Victoria Crowned Pigeons spend most of their time on the ground, they can fly briefly into tree canopies to sleep or hide from predators. They forage in small groups on the forest floor, picking up a variety of fallen fruits, berries, and seeds. Sadly, these beautiful birds may be more common in captivity than the wild due to an extreme loss of natural habitat.
5. Paradise Tanager
This tanager species has jet black feathers with extremely bright patches of teal, red-orange, light green, and indigo. These bright colors help the birds stand out in any environment, which can help them attract a mate. They’re native to the Amazon Rainforest, particularly in Venezuela, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Brazil.
Paradise tanagers have a lot of colors on their tiny bodies. These birds only measure about 5 to 6 inches long when full-grown. They spend most of their time in tree canopies while hanging out in flocks of 10 to 15 birds. In some cases, flocks could include birds of other species. They forage for fruits and insects found on the underside of branches.
When it’s time to reproduce, the colorful little birds create cup-shaped nests out of vegetation and lay two eggs. The eggs are mostly white, but some have reddish-purple spots.
6. Greater Bird-of-Paradise
Male Greater Bird-of-Paradises have gorgeous flowing tails full of fluffy yellow and white feathers. They can show off their beautiful tails during mating displays to attract females. The females are smaller with duller colors, measuring about 14 inches long, while males are about 17 inches long. That doesn’t include the male tail feathers, which can reach up to three feet long.
You can find these unique birds perched on branches throughout southwest New Guinea forests. Most of the time, these birds are solitary. One male will breed with multiple females at a time. Each female builds the nest alone and lays up to seven eggs. They may also breed with the Raggiana Bird-of-Paradise, a species with similar feather patterns.
These birds eat a variety of fruits, seeds, and small insects. They often need to search the forest floor to find these, so they will quickly fly down and immediately return to the canopy afterward.
7. Indian Peafowl (Well-known Beautiful Bird)
The Indian Peafowl, more commonly known as a peacock, is one of the most iconic and coolest birds out there. The males have bright blue bodies with large green patterned feathers they can raise to attract mates and intimidate predators. The females are brown and lack the colorful tail feathers. They’re native to India and Sri Lanka, but they also roam freely at many zoos and parks around the world.
These popular birds are quite large, with the head and body reaching three to four feet long. On top of that, the tail feathers of the male can grow up to five feet long. Peacock eggs are usually white and measure about four inches long. When they hatch, males and females look identical because the males don’t fully develop colorful feathers until about three years old.
Indian Peafowls feed on a wide range of items that they find on the ground, including seeds, insects, fruits, lizards, small mammals, and even small snakes. Even though they’re typically seen walking around, they can fly up to 1,000 feet to escape predators and roost in trees.
8. Himalayan Monal (Beautiful Mountain Bird)
The Himalayan Monal is beautiful because of the male’s shiny blue, green, orange, and red feathers and metallic green crest. Female Himalayan Monals have a similar body shape but with brown feathers. During mating season, the females especially prefer the males with the most vibrant plumage.
These pheasants live at high altitudes, typically around 4,000 feet, where they spend most of the time on the ground, foraging for food. Their diet consists of a variety of insects, seeds, roots, and berries. They live across the Himalayas in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Tibet, and Bhutan.
They’re somewhat large, measuring 28 inches long. Their size doesn’t hold them back from flying. They typically fly to higher altitudes during the breeding season. The bright orange tails and white rumps of the males become especially visible when flying.
9. European Bee-Eater
European Bee-Eaters may be on the small side, measuring 10.6 to 11.4 inches long, but they have a lot of bold colors in a petite size. Their feather pattern includes stunning shades of blue-green, yellow, and red-brown.
Staying true to their name, these beautiful birds catch about 250 bees a day in mid-flight, hitting them on hard surfaces to remove the stinger before ingesting. They also eat wasps, hornets, and other insects.
They have a wide range, including Southern and Central Europe, Northern and Southern Africa, and Western Asia. They’re social birds that typically roost and feed with other birds of their species. When mating, they choose one mate and stay with that partner year after year. Females lay five to eight glossy, spherical eggs.
10. Gouldian Finch
Gouldian Finches look like beautiful abstract paintings. Their feathers have bold patches of red, green, purple, yellow, blue, and black. Their unique color patterns come from a mixture of genetics and external factors, like diets. Both males and females are colorful, but males have bright purple chests while the females’ chests are a softer purple like lilac.
You can find these beautiful birds across Northern Australia. They prefer to stay near water, in areas with eucalyptus trees. The birds build loose grass nests inside tree hollows, and several birds often build their nests in the same opening.
They’re highly social and sometimes travel in flocks of hundreds or even thousands, which can include other species. They fly to wherever food and water is accessible. They mostly feed on grass seeds, occasionally eating insects too.
11. Fiery-Throated Hummingbird (Beautiful Tiny Bird)
As the name implies, this hummingbird species stands out because it has bright red feathers near its throat. The rest of its feathers are a shimmering mixture of yellow, green, blue, and black. These little birds can be dominant and aggressive toward other hummingbirds, regularly defending their feeding territories.
They live in Costa Rica and western Panama, and they’re one of the smallest birds in the world, measuring only 4.1 to 4.3 inches long. So, even if you’re in those locations, they can be hard to spot.
These hummingbirds primarily feed on nectar, but their narrow bills are too short to reach into some flowers. They may pierce flowers with the tip of their bills to access the nectar. They sometimes catch insects in mid-flight as well.
12. Nicobar Pigeon
The Nicobar Pigeon has long feathers around its neck, making it look like it has a unique hairstyle. As if that wasn’t cool enough, these birds also have shimmering green and blue feathers on their bodies. While they might not look like it, these birds are the closest living relatives to the extinct Dodo bird.
These beautiful birds measure 14 to 16 inches long and weigh one to two pounds. They only lay one to two eggs at a time, which are white but sometimes have a hint of blue.
They’re native to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, many of which are uninhabited. They travel in flocks between the islands, searching for spots with the best food availability. They spend most of their time on the ground collecting seeds, fruits, and buds, but they can quickly fly away when threatened.
13. Keel-Billed Toucan (Bird with a Beautiful Bill)
The Keel-Billed Toucan is another iconic, beautiful bird. This species has a long, thick beak with green, blue, red, and orange. They’re also known as Rainbow-Billed Toucans because of their stunning colors. They have unique foot shapes, which include two toes in the front and two in the back to make it easier to climb branches.
You can spot these birds in tropical and subtropical rainforests from Southern Mexico to Colombia and Venezuela. They’re social birds that almost always hang out with other birds of the same species. They typically spend all their time in tree canopies, often resting in holes in trees.
Keel-Billed Toucans mostly eat fruits, but they may also snack on insects, lizards, tree frogs, and eggs. When eating their food, they throw it in the air and catch it in their large bills.
14. Rainbow Lorikeet (Beautiful Pet Bird)
The Rainbow Lorikeet has a fitting name because these beautiful birds have several bold colors in their feathers. Their feather patterns include dark blue, green, orange, and red. To top off the unique coloring, they have bright red bills. They typically measure 9.8 to 11.8 inches long.
While they’re native to coastal regions of Australia, they’re also kept as pets around the world. In the wild, these birds primarily eat fruit, pollen, and nectar. They have a brush-like tongue that helps them collect food from flowers.
Rainbow lorikeets typically stay with the same mate for life, sometimes joining flocks as they travel. The females lay one to three eggs per clutch, which are small and white. They primarily build their nests in tree hollows, but they may resort to rock crevices and holes in the ground if they can’t find suitable trees.
15. Scarlet Macaw
Scarlet Macaws are well-known birds because they’re highly intelligent and can mimic human speech. Most can learn five to ten human words and phrases at a time, along with some tricks.
These large birds have red, blue, and yellow feathers that make them stand out from the green plants in their habitats. They measure 33 to 35 inches long.
These beautiful birds appear in the wild from Southern Mexico to Peru and Brazil. They typically travel in flocks, sometimes flying long distances to find areas with plenty of food. They primarily eat nuts, leaves, berries, and seeds. The strong curved beaks of these parrots are perfect for breaking nuts and seeds with hard shells.
Keep an Eye Out for Beautiful Birds
Its hard not to be amazed by these beautiful birds. There are gorgeous bird species all over the world, so you might spot some of them at sanctuaries, zoos, and even in your backyard, depending on where you live. Pay attention to the birds around you, you may be lucky enough to spot one that’s on this list.
