Birds, Ranked

A massive sea eagle with a wingspan reaching up to 2.3 meters in large females, it snatches fish from the surface and pirates kills from ospreys. Rescued from near-extinction after DDT was banned, it was removed from the U.S. endangered species list in 2007.

One of the smartest animals alive, ravens solve multi-step puzzles, plan for the future, and use tools. They can mimic human speech and remember individual human faces for years.

In a hunting stoop it exceeds 320 km/h, making it the fastest animal on the planet. Bony baffles in its nostrils redirect airflow so it can breathe at speeds that would otherwise overwhelm its lungs.

Males incubate a single egg on their feet through Antarctic blizzards for roughly two months without eating, huddling in slowly rotating masses to survive. They dive over 500 meters chasing fish and squid.

A heavy Arctic owl feathered down to its toes, it hunts by day across open tundra and an adult can take on the order of 1,600 lemmings a year. Its near-silent flight makes it a phantom predator.

The world's only true alpine parrot, this New Zealand native famously dismantles car wipers, rubber seals, and backpacks out of sheer curiosity. It passes cognition and cooperation tests that rival those of great apes.

The only birds capable of sustained backward flight, they beat their wings up to around 80 times per second and drop into nightly torpor to survive. Their hearts can exceed 1,200 beats per minute.

Its heart-shaped facial disc funnels sound so precisely it can strike prey in total darkness by hearing alone. It is one of the most widespread birds on Earth, found on every continent except Antarctica.

The ancestor of nearly all domestic duck breeds and one of the most abundant, widespread ducks on Earth, thriving across every continent but Antarctica. Reliable, iridescent, and unbothered.

A thrush that locates earthworms using both sight and hearing, it's one of the first songbirds to strike up at dawn. Its spring return is a classic seasonal marker across North America.

A brilliant red songbird whose color comes from carotenoids in its diet, it holds territory year-round and is the state bird of seven U.S. states. Unusually, the female sings too.

A bold corvid that mimics hawk calls to clear rivals off feeders and caches thousands of acorns, effectively helping plant oak forests. Beautiful, brash, and a bit of a bully.

The largest living bird can sprint at around 70 km/h and delivers kicks powerful enough to kill a large predator. It lays the biggest egg of any living animal.

Descended from cliff-nesting birds, the ubiquitous urban pigeon can navigate home over hundreds of kilometers and can recognize individual human faces and even distinguish paintings by different artists. Underrated brains, overrated mess.

Spread worldwide by humans, this scrappy generalist thrives in cities from Sydney to New York. Adaptable to a fault, it often edges out native cavity- and cranny-nesting songbirds.

Far sharper than its dopey reputation, the wild turkey can fly in short bursts near 90 km/h and roosts high in trees. Ben Franklin praised it in a private letter; Thanksgiving disagrees.

Aggressively territorial and unafraid of people, these geese hiss, chase, and blanket parks in droppings. A flock famously took down US Airways Flight 1549, forcing its 2009 landing in the Hudson.

Released in New York's Central Park in 1890 by Eugene Schieffelin's acclimatization society — the popular Shakespeare-inspiration tale is now disputed — starlings spread to an estimated 85 to 200 million birds and displace native cavity-nesters across North America. Great mimics, ecological wrecking ball.

A flightless Mauritian relative of pigeons, driven extinct within roughly a century of human contact, largely by introduced rats and pigs raiding its ground nests plus hunting. Its name is now literally synonymous with obsolescence.

Often called the world's most dangerous bird, it wields a dagger-like inner claw up to about 12 cm long and has caused rare human deaths with powerful slashing kicks. Magnificent, but genuinely capable of killing.