Feather & Bird Encyclopedia
Search and identify feathers by species — with feather type, plumage, colours, size, habitat, and how to tell them apart in the field.
Cinereous Vulture
One of the heaviest flying raptors, with uniformly dark brown plumage, a dense dark ruff, and broad flight feathers adapted for soaring across open Eurasian terrain.
raptor
Tennessee Warbler
A plainly patterned warbler with a gray head, white eyebrow stripe, and whitish underparts, notable for its unmarked, wing-bar-free appearance and boreal breeding range.
songbird
Collared Crow
A large, distinctive East Asian crow with a bold white band across the nape, neck, and breast set against black plumage.
corvid
Little Tern
The Old World counterpart to the Least Tern, a tiny, fast-flying species of European, African, and Asian coasts, distinguished by its small size, yellow bill, and bold white forehead patch.
seabird
Forster's Tern
A North American marsh tern with notably pale, frosty primaries and a distinctive nonbreeding head pattern featuring a dark patch through the eye rather than a full black cap.
seabird
Metallic Pigeon
The Metallic Pigeon is a dark island pigeon named for the glossy green-and-purple iridescent sheen across its neck feathers, often paired with a contrasting white throat.
dove pigeon
African Spoonbill
An all-white African wading bird with a red face and legs, identified by its plain white plumage and grey spoon-shaped bill without a crest.
wading bird
Nanday Conure
A green South American conure easily told by its solid black head, or hood, along with a small blue patch on the breast and red-feathered thighs.
parrot
Limpkin
A brown, white-spotted wading bird related to both rails and cranes, known for its loud, wailing calls and long, slightly downcurved bill.
wading bird
Western Marsh Harrier
The Western Marsh Harrier is the largest and darkest of the Eurasian harriers, males showing a distinctive tricolor pattern of grey, brown, and black on the wings and tail, while females and juveniles are largely dark chocolate-brown with a pale creamy crown.
raptor
Great Shearwater
A large shearwater with a dark cap set off by a pale collar and scaly-patterned brown upperparts, showing a distinctive dark belly patch against otherwise white underparts.
seabird
Red-tailed Black Cockatoo
A large Australian cockatoo, the male Red-tailed Black Cockatoo has glossy black plumage with bold red tail panels, while females show duller, yellow-spotted plumage and an orange-yellow tail pattern.
parrot
Golden Tanager
A vividly golden-yellow tanager of Andean cloud forests, marked by a bold black ear patch and dark streaking on the back and wings. Sexes look alike, and it often travels in mixed-species flocks through forest edge and secondary growth.
songbird
Mistle Thrush
The largest and boldest-marked of the common European thrushes, with large, rounded blackish spots on cream underparts and white corners visible on the outer tail feathers.
songbird
Palm Cockatoo
A large, distinctive black cockatoo with a shaggy crest and bright red bare facial skin that can flush more intensely when the bird is excited.
parrot
Killdeer
A loud, boldly patterned plover of open ground across North America, easily told by its double black breast bands and bright orange-buff rump revealed in flight.
shorebird
Common Pochard
The Common Pochard is a Eurasian diving duck notable for the male's warm chestnut head and contrasting black breast, set against a pale, finely patterned gray body.
waterfowl
Fieldfare
A boldly patterned, multi-toned thrush combining a grey head and rump with a chestnut back and black tail, often seen in large winter flocks across open farmland.
songbird
Bulwer's Pheasant
A Bornean forest pheasant with glossy blue-black plumage, an extraordinary curved white tail, and bright red facial wattles that expand dramatically during display.
gamebird
Southern Red Bishop
A small African weaver whose breeding males turn brilliant scarlet and black, one of the most vividly colored birds of Africa's wetland grasses.
songbird
Rainbow Bee-eater
Australia's only bee-eater, a multicolored bird combining green, gold, and turquoise plumage with a fine black tail streamer.
other
Paradise Tanager
One of the most vividly colored songbirds in the world, the Paradise Tanager combines a turquoise-green head, black back, red rump, and purplish-blue throat in a single small canopy bird.
songbird
Shiny Cowbird
A slender, glossy blackbird relative widespread across South America and the Caribbean, notable for its uniform purplish-blue sheen and habit of parasitizing other birds' nests.
songbird
Brown-headed Cowbird
A small blackbird best known for laying its eggs in other birds' nests, with males showing a sharply contrasting brown head against a glossy black body and females entirely plain gray-brown.
songbird