# What is the best bird of prey?

> Speed records, crushing grip, and a wingspan you can measure in doorways. Ranked against each other, the arguments get personal.

*By YPB Team · Published August 27, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/what-is-the-best-bird-of-prey*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Peregrine Falcon** — score 1000/1000
   The fastest animal on Earth, hitting over 200 mph in a hunting stoop.
2. **Harpy Eagle** — score 700/1000
   A rainforest giant with talons the size of a grizzly bear's claws.
3. **Barn Owl** — score 625/1000
   A near-silent night hunter with the most acute directional hearing ever tested in an animal.
4. **Osprey** — score 577/1000
   A specialist fish hawk that plunges feet-first and catches fish on most attempts.
5. **Philippine Eagle** — score 566/1000
   A critically endangered forest eagle and one of the largest raptors alive.
6. **Steller's Sea Eagle** — score 566/1000
   The heaviest eagle in the world, breeding on the Russian Far East coast.
7. **Golden Eagle** — score 500/1000
   A powerful mountain eagle used in falconry for centuries across Eurasia.
8. **Red-tailed Hawk** — score 423/1000
   The common North American hawk whose scream is dubbed over eagles in films.
9. **Bearded Vulture** — score 423/1000
   A mountain scavenger that drops bones from height to get at the marrow.
10. **Snowy Owl** — score 423/1000
   An Arctic owl that hunts in daylight across open tundra.
11. **Secretarybird** — score 333/1000
   A long-legged African raptor that kills snakes by stamping on them.
12. **Bald Eagle** — score 227/1000
   North America's fish-hunting sea eagle and the official national bird of the United States.
13. **Andean Condor** — score 227/1000
   A vulture with a three-metre wingspan that rides mountain thermals for hours.
14. **Great Horned Owl** — score 227/1000
   A nocturnal ambush hunter found from Alaska to Patagonia.
15. **Gyrfalcon** — score 100/1000
   The largest falcon, a high-Arctic hunter long prized by royal falconers.

Tags: nature, animals, predators, birds