What’s the world’s prettiest bird?

December 23, 2018 • 9:00 am

After looking at some bird photos sent by a reader, and admiring the lovely lilac-breasted roller, I got to thinking about the world’s prettiest birds.

I’ve never wavered in my conviction that the world’s prettiest bird is the male of the Resplendent Quetzal (Pharomachrus mocinno), which I’ve had the privilege of seeing several times in the wild. (They live in montane cloud forests of Central America.) This breathtaking bird has iridescent green feathers and a bright crimson breast, combined with a super long, sexually selected tail and a lovely yellow beak. Males even have a fuzzy crest atop their heads.

It’s the national bird of Guatemala and a drawing of the male appears on all their currency (the unit of currency is in fact called the Guatemalan quetzal, worth about eight American cents). The Mayans used the long tail feathers as currency.

Yes, the quetzal has fewer colors than one can see in, say, the roller or the rainbow lorikeet, but sometimes less is more. And that tail—sometimes nearly twice as long as the male body!

Here are some photos of the species, but I’m urging readers to email me a few words about what they consider the prettiest bird and a link to a good picture. (You can name only one species, and please specify the sex if you choose a sexually dimorphic species.) I’ll collect these for a few days and post them on the 27th (Thursday), and maybe I’ll recruit an independent judge to name The World’s Prettiest Bird. Please do not put your entries in the comments below; email them to me. Thanks!

Male quetzals:

And the female—no slouch in the looks department either:

A one-quetzal banknote:

 

25 thoughts on “What’s the world’s prettiest bird?”

  3. Good choice! I also vote for the Resplendant Quetzal. I’ve had the pleasure of working with them for long periods of time in Mexico and Costa Rica, to the point where some individuals lost their fear of me and perched a few yards from me while I sat in the branches of their favorite fruiting tree.

    Note that there are northern and southern subspecies. If I may be a quetzal snob, the northern subspecies (Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras) is even more beautiful than the southern subspecies (Costa Rica, Panama). It has a bigger crest and a considerably longer tail.

          2. I love the riot of iridescence on this bird, shining simultaneously in almost every color of the spectrum; it is hard to imagine a greater contrast with the bleak monochrome snowscape of its habitat in winter.

            I’ve only seen these in captivity, but even then it stands out like a torch.

  7. I’d have to think about it a while. I’d be inclined to stick to North American birds for my choice. Simply because they are close and accessible.

    1. That is an amazing image. (I can’t help but wonder if it was enhanced.) I love how the tail fills the whole field of view, almost as if the bird is warping all space, and perhaps time as well…

    2. There’s a muster of peacocks that roams wild in my old Miami neighborhood. Many a morning, I’d peek out my front window by dawns’s first light to see them pecking about in the front yard.

  9. Cardinal. Bluebirds come in second place. No other birds come close to perfection of that.
    Golden hawks come close. Beautiful birds.

  11. Just to be an ornithological pedant, the long part of the quetzal’s ‘tail’ is not really the tail proper but are super long upper tail coverts(which hide the normal sized tail). I mention this only because I think it is interesting, not because I really care about whether it is a true tail.

Comments are closed.