For Earth Day, a Photo Appreciation of Birds

On this Earth Day, a day set aside to remember and appreciate the environment and our responsibilities and roles within it, I wanted to gather a selection of images of the incredibly diverse bird life that we share this planet with. Tens of billions of individual animals are divided among some 10,000 species, inhabiting nearly every environment on Earth. These fascinating creatures are at home on land, at sea, or in the sky, from our polar regions to the tropics. On a day meant for us to care for our environment, it seemed appropriate to feature some of those we share it with.

A rufous-crested coquette seeks out nectar from porterweed, photographed in Panama. #

Pink-footed geese take off to feed from Montrose Basin on October 6, 2010, in Montrose, Scotland. #

Two Japanese red-crowned cranes leap and dance, performing a courtship ritual in the snow. #

A mother hen protects a group of chicks under her wings and body. #

A murmuration of starlings flies together before landing to sleep near the southern Israeli city of Rahat, in the Negev desert, on January 22, 2018. #

An owl is seen at the Ankara University Faculty of Veterinary Medicine Animal Hospital in Ankara, Turkey, on February 28, 2024. #

A close view of a peacock with its colorful tail feathers on display #

A loon chick catches a ride on the back of a parent, photographed in Canada. #

Thousands of king penguins are pictured on Possession Island, part of the Crozet Islands, which are a sub-Antarctic archipelago in the southern Indian Ocean, on December 21, 2022. #

A shoebill wades along the shore of Lake Victoria, Uganda. #

An aerial view of lesser flamingos taking off from Lake Bogoria, in Kenya #

A stork flies, along with others nearby, as they begin to return to their nests with the warming weather, in Ankara, Turkey, on April 18, 2024. #

A young wood duck leaps to the ground from its nest in a tree in southern Minnesota. #

A close view of a Caribbean flamingo resting its head on its back #

Western grebes run across a lake during a mating ritual in Santa Clara, California. #

A cormorant feeds on bait fish in the Sea of Cortez. #

A pileated woodpecker carves a cavity out of a tree to create a nest. #

Northern gannets fly around the remote and steep cliffs of the St. Kilda Archipelago in Scotland, home to the world's largest Gannet colony. #

A great egret's lacelike plumage is displayed during a mating dance, photographed in Florida. #

An underwater view of king penguins swimming in Right Whale Bay, off South Georgia Island. #