These Valuable Images of Child Birds Are Just What You Want

Parents tending to their offspring are a few of the most adorable moments in nature, so it’s no marvel that photographers try to seize these interactions. Last yr, like every other yr, the 2025 Audubon Photography Awards obtained a powerful assortment of child chook photographs that had us awwing at our screens. From adorably awkward American Woodcock fluffballs to shy swallow chicks in Chile, the next 15 pictures are a shocking showcase of avian household life throughout the Americas. 

All of those photographs had been captured at a protected and accountable distance, and in doing so, they provide us glimpses into moments of fascinating pure historical past each far and near residence. Although the pictures didn’t win any awards, they undoubtedly gained our hearts. Make positive to take a look at the 2025 awards winners, honorable mentions, and Top 100 for extra dazzling shows. But within the meantime, prepare for a bombardment of cuteness.

Don’t overlook! Entry for the 2026 awards closes on March 4. So enter now! 

Great Horned Owl (above)

Surrounded by spindly Spanish moss, an grownup Great Horned Owl naps with its owlet. This species is North America’s most widespread owl and one of many first to begin breeding—as early as late November in southern states like Florida, the place Alex Nelson captured this picture. In the winter, pairs of Great Horned Owls start to hoot to at least one one other, and the feminine spends greater than a month incubating the eggs. Young depart the nest round 5 weeks after hatching, and can spend one other 5 weeks screeching and clambering alongside tree branches till they will fly.

American Woodcock

Just like adults, child American Woodcocks bob to the beat of their very own drum as they stroll throughout the forest ground. These downy chicks depart their nest inside hours after hatching, and are fed by their mom for the primary week of their life. After that, they forage on their very own, bouncing alongside to fire up prey whereas probing their lengthy little payments into the soil in quest of earthworms and bugs. In this photograph, Andrew Tao captures a candy second between mom and child, the place she holds a wormy meal she snagged from the leaf litter in her beak.

Wood Stork

Wood Storks nest in bustling waterbird colonies at wetlands in Florida and the Southeast. At the beginning of the breeding season, these birds use giant sticks to assemble flimsy nests in mangrove timber or cypress, and can delicately line the within with leaves. Within the nest, storks will lay round three to 4 eggs, with 5, as pictured, being the utmost clutch measurement. As the season goes on, new sticks could also be added to the nest, and it’ll actually turn out to be lined in guano, which helps maintain the construction collectively. Young storks are noisy and scraggly, and can fledge at round eight weeks outdated.
 

Baltimore Oriole

Although a lover of fruits and nectar, on the subject of feeding their chicks, grownup Baltimore Orioles principally depend on bugs. Feeding these younger birds beetles, moths, and grasshoppers snagged from the treetops offers them sufficient protein for them to develop. Although the feminine oriole is pictured right here, each mother and father assist elevate the chicks. Young birds develop up in a hanging pouch-like nest, woven primarily by the feminine, and can depart the nest about two weeks after hatching.

Sandhill Crane

A Sandhill Crane chick is known as a colt—an apt identify since these birds are working and on their toes at a really younger age, as photographed right here by Tim Barker. Within a day after hatching, colts comply with their mother and father into marshy areas, the place each mother and father feed the younger chook bugs, seeds, or different bite-sized meals. Young cranes stick round their mother and father for9 to 10 months, ultimately migrating with their household to their wintering grounds on the finish of the breeding season.

Crested Caracara

Although they seem like a hawk, caracaras are literally falcons. In truth, they’re the one falcon that collects nesting materials to assemble their cumbersome abodes, relying  on sticks, stems, vines, and different vegetation to construct a construction round two toes throughout in measurement. Once established, nests may be reused by pairs yr after yr, with the birds making repairs and including nesting supplies as obligatory. This Crested Caracara household, photographed by Isabel Guerra Clark, appears to have made its residence in a saguaro cactus, a keystone plant of the Sonoran Desert.

Chilean Swallow

A typical sight within the extra temperate reaches of Chile and Patagonia, the Chilean Swallow is a species that solely breeds in southern South America. Like many swallows, they nest in cavities close to water, both below the eaves of homes or in tree hollows, reminiscent of one housing the 2 fledglings pictured right here. Inside the cavity, Chilean Swallow nests are comprised of mud and lined with feathers, the place the feminine will lay a clutch of 4 to 6 eggs. A pair can elevate two to 3 broods a season.

American Goldfinch

When it involves American Goldfinch chicks, the male takes on the majority of the work. He’s in control of gathering meals when the chicks first hatch, whereas the feminine fingers over the meals to the chicks. Over time, the male begins to offer the chicks meals straight, and when the birds are near fledging, he’s the first caregiver. In this photograph, Sarah McDaniel captures the male goldfinch feeding three nestlings in a prairie in Illinois.
 

American Oystercatcher

Fuzzy oystercatcher chicks are in a position to depart the nest inside hours after they hatch. In the primary two months of their lives, each of the mother and father will carry the younger birds shellfish and worms and can loudly chase and harass predators. As they develop, the chicks will then begin to probe on their very own, foraging alongside the shorelines and utilizing their tan coloration as camouflage in opposition to the sandy seashore. In this photograph, Matt Reitinger noticed two chicks taking part in, chasing one different, and entering into chest-bumping tussles on a seashore in New Jersey.

American Robin

When American Robins first hatch, they’re blind, helpless, and lined in a couple of wisps of white downy feathers. But over the course of a brief two weeks, these chicks bear a dramatic transformation. Both mother and father work diligently to assemble bundles of bugs and earthworms, nourishing their infants to allow them to sprout new feathers, develop their wings, and strengthen their muscle tissues. When they emerge from the nest, as this younger robin pictured right here has executed, they’re the identical measurement as an grownup and might tentatively fly and forage on their very own.

Trumpeter Swan

The wetlands of Alaska, the place Hiresha Senanayake snapped this household photograph, hosts essential refuges for the Trumpeter Swan. It’s the place many swans, primarily ones from the Pacific coast, nest and breed, benefiting from the luxurious panorama’s ample meals and security from predators. A swan pair can have as much as 9 cygnets (child swans), which might swim after they’re one-day outdated. Family portraits like these was once uncommon, as Trumpeter Swans had been thought-about endangered within the mid-1900s after they underwent a precipitous decline. But due to looking laws and habitat safety, the species has made a miraculous rebound.

Roseate Spoonbill

A newly hatched Roseate Spoonbill could seem a little bit bit like a dinosaur. Its invoice is lengthy, thick, and vaguely spoonlike, and a layer of white downy feathers covers its pale pink pores and skin. Like many child birds, a spoonbills’ weight loss plan consists of regurgitated meals, on this case of small fish and crustaceans that the adults scooped up from close by waters. The chick will stay within the nest for a couple of month, till they climb onto close by foliage and eventually fledge at six weeks outdated.
 

California Quail

A clutch for a California Quail is normally round 13 to 14 eggs, and once they hatch, giant teams of chicks may be seen following the adults round. During the morning and night, quails spend a lot of their time on the bottom, foraging for seeds and different grains. But when they should relaxation, they roost within the security of timber. For this photograph, Robert Groos got here throughout six two-week-old quail chicks getting comfy on a fallen oak department on his property.

Golden-plumed Parakeet

A protracted-tailed parrot discovered excessive within the Andes, the Golden-plumed Parakeet is usually nomadic, wandering the cloud forests in giant, rowdy teams. However, as soon as they begin nesting, the parakeets will stick to at least one place for a number of months. These birds are cavity nesters, as seen on this photograph taken by Santiago Palacios Salazar in Colombia, and have been famous to have an affinity for hollows in wax palm timber. Once the chicks hatch, each female and male parakeets care for his or her younger, feeding them three to 4 occasions a day, and can shrilly name to at least one one other when returning to the nest.

Laysan Albatross

Flying, for a Laysan Albatross chick, is hard enterprise. Before they fledge at round six months outdated, these birds can spend weeks vigorously flapping, working into the wind, and working towards little hops to grasp the carry of their giant wings. Once aloft, it could be a very long time earlier than an albatross sees land once more: Young albatrosses spend their first three or 4 years residing at sea, solely returning to their delivery islands when they’re prepared to boost households of their very own. The birds nest in only a few distant islands on the earth, together with on Kauai, Hawaii, which is the place Alex Eisengart took this photograph.