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.
Great Black-backed Gull
The world's largest gull, the Great Black-backed Gull shows strikingly dark slate-black mantle feathers contrasting with a pure white head and body, and is a powerful predator as well as scavenger along North Atlantic coasts.
seabird
Grass Owl
A ground-nesting barn-owl relative of tall grasslands from Asia to Australia, with long slender legs and golden-buff to dark brown feathers finely spotted, adapted to a life spent low over open grass.
owl
Glaucous Gull
A massive, pale Arctic gull, the Glaucous Gull is unusual among large gulls for lacking black wingtips entirely, showing instead uniformly pale gray and white feathers well suited to its icy northern range.
seabird
Dodo
A large, flightless pigeon relative once native to Mauritius, known for its stout grey-brown body, oversized hooked bill, and small, curled tuft of tail feathers; it has been extinct since the late 1600s.
dove pigeon
Oriental Pied Hornbill
The Oriental Pied Hornbill is a medium-sized Asian hornbill with strongly contrasting black-and-white plumage, including a tail marked with white outer feathers. It is one of the more adaptable hornbills, tolerating forest edge and even wooded parkland.
other
Ring-billed Gull
A common, adaptable medium-sized gull of North America named for the black band around its bill, the Ring-billed Gull shows pale gray back feathers and yellow legs, thriving in habitats from lakeshores to parking lots.
seabird
Crested Argus
A secretive forest pheasant renowned for the male's extraordinarily long tail feathers, among the longest of any bird, patterned with rows of pale eyespots. A tall, erectile crest and bare blue facial skin round out its distinctive appearance.
gamebird
Wattled Jacana
A chestnut-and-black wetland bird best known for its extraordinarily long toes, which let it walk across lily pads and floating vegetation. A bright yellow facial shield and greenish-yellow flight feathers add to its distinctive look.
shorebird
King Bird-of-paradise
The King Bird-of-paradise is the smallest member of its family, with a brilliant crimson-and-white plumage and unusual wire-like tail feathers that end in coiled emerald-green discs. It forages and displays in the lower and middle levels of New Guinea lowland forest.
songbird
Swainson's Hawk
Swainson's Hawk is a long-winged buteo of open grassland and prairie, typically showing a dark breast bib, paler belly, and notably dark flight feathers contrasting against paler underwing coverts, distinct from the broader-winged buteos it shares range with.
raptor
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
Stitchbird
The Stitchbird, or Hihi, is a small New Zealand honeyeater-relative in which males show a striking black head and yellow shoulder band, now restricted mainly to predator-free sanctuaries.
songbird
Ground Woodpecker
A highly unusual, almost entirely terrestrial woodpecker of southern African rocky grassland, with pink-flushed underparts and none of the tree-climbing habits of its relatives.
woodpecker
Black-headed Siskin
A Central American finch with a solid black hood, yellow-olive body plumage, and black wings marked by bright yellow patches.
songbird
Kea
A large, intelligent mountain parrot known for drab olive-green plumage that hides brilliant orange-red under the wings.
parrot
Red Siskin
A small, brilliantly red South American finch with a black hood and wings, now rare in the wild and notable for its striking male plumage.
songbird
European Pied Flycatcher
A small Old World flycatcher in which breeding males show bold black-and-white plumage, while females and nonbreeding males are softer brownish-gray.
songbird
Hudsonian Godwit
A long-distance migrant godwit with deep chestnut, heavily barred breeding plumage and distinctive black underwing coverts, known for undertaking one of the longest nonstop overwater flights of any shorebird.
shorebird
Bar-tailed Godwit
A high-Arctic-breeding godwit renowned for extraordinary nonstop transoceanic migratory flights, showing a finely barred tail and rich brick-red breeding underparts quite different from the bold black tail of the related Black-tailed Godwit.
shorebird
Slender-billed Crow
A forest-dwelling crow of Southeast Asia distinguished by its notably slim, elongated bill.
corvid
Large-billed Crow
A robust, all-black crow found widely across Asia, notable for its deep, arched bill and steep forehead.
corvid
Desert Finch
A pale, sand-colored finch of arid country, notable for its black-tipped wings crossed by a soft pink panel.
songbird
James's Flamingo
The smallest of the high-altitude Andean flamingos, showing pale pink plumage and a notably reduced area of black in the wing.
wading bird
White-fronted Bee-eater
A social African bee-eater notable for its crimson throat and white forehead, nesting in dense colonies along riverbanks.
other