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.
Greater Sage-Grouse
North America's largest grouse, famous for the male's elaborate lek display featuring spiky tail feathers fanned upward and inflated yellow air sacs on a white breast.
gamebird
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
Curlew Sandpiper
A slender, long-legged sandpiper with a gently down-curved bill, best distinguished in the field and in shed feathers by its bright white rump, which flashes clearly in flight.
shorebird
American Wigeon
A medium dabbling duck named 'baldpate' for the male's pale cream crown, which contrasts with an iridescent green face patch and a large white shoulder patch visible in flight.
waterfowl
Scaled Quail
A pale, scaly-plumaged quail of arid grassland in the southwestern United States and Mexico, easily recognized by its overall bluish-gray tone and a fluffy white crest sometimes called a cottontop.
gamebird
Red-shouldered Hawk
The Red-shouldered Hawk is a woodland buteo with rufous-barred underparts, reddish shoulder patches, a boldly black-and-white banded tail, and a translucent pale crescent near the wingtip visible in flight.
raptor
Steller's Eider
Steller's Eider is the smallest of the eiders, a compact sea duck whose male shows a white head with a bold black eye patch, warm cinnamon underparts, and a glossy blue wing patch.
waterfowl
Spectacled Eider
The Spectacled Eider is a large, localized arctic sea duck named for the male's bold white, black-rimmed eye patches that give the appearance of goggles set against a pale green head.
waterfowl
Red-breasted Nuthatch
The Red-breasted Nuthatch is a small conifer-forest nuthatch whose rusty-orange underside feathers and bold black eye-stripe set it apart from its white-breasted relative.
songbird
Red-and-green Macaw
One of the largest macaws, a vivid red parrot of South American forests with a green wing band, blue flight feathers, and a bare white face marked with thin lines of red feathers.
parrot
Palm-nut Vulture
An unusual, mostly white African vulture closely tied to oil palm groves and coastal wetlands, with black flight feathers and a partly black tail breaking up its pale plumage.
raptor
Orange-breasted Falcon
The Orange-breasted Falcon is a powerful, rare Neotropical falcon resembling a large Bat Falcon, with a black hood, a broad orange-buff breast band, and a boldly white-barred black belly.
raptor
Northern Shoveler
A dabbling duck best known for its oversized, spoon-shaped bill, with males showing a bold green head, white breast, and chestnut flanks over pale blue wing patches.
waterfowl
Magpie-lark
A common Australian black-and-white songbird, the Magpie-lark shows bold facial and body markings that differ between males and females, and is frequently seen foraging near water on open ground.
songbird
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
Little Corella
A predominantly white cockatoo of Australian open country, the Little Corella has a short, low crest and a faint pinkish tinge at the base of its head feathers, visible only when raised.
parrot
Intermediate Egret
A medium-sized all-white egret of Asia, Africa, and Australia, best told apart from its larger and smaller relatives by bill proportions and the extent of bare skin around the eye.
wading bird
Canvasback
A large diving duck with a distinctive sloping forehead profile, whose male shows a deep chestnut-red head and black breast set against a strikingly pale, almost white body.
waterfowl
Bonaparte's Gull
A dainty, tern-like gull of the North American boreal forest, notable as one of the few gulls that nests in trees, and identifiable by its crisp black hood and bright white wing wedge.
seabird
Blue Jay
The Blue Jay is a large, vocal corvid whose bold blue, black-barred, white-tipped wing and tail feathers are among the most instantly recognizable of any North American songbird.
corvid
Eurasian Pygmy-Owl
Europe's smallest owl, a boreal forest specialist that hunts small birds and rodents largely by day. Its feathers are gray-brown to rufous with crisp white spotting and a narrowly barred tail.
owl
Dusky Thrush
The Dusky Thrush is a boldly marked Siberian thrush with heavily scaled blackish-and-white underparts and a bright rufous wing patch, wintering across East Asia and occasionally reaching North America.
songbird
Heermann's Gull
A distinctively dark-bodied Pacific coast gull with a bright red bill, most easily recognized outside the nesting season by its uniform sooty-gray plumage contrasting with a white head.
seabird
Gyrfalcon
The largest falcon in the world, a powerful hunter of the high Arctic occurring in white, gray, and dark plumage morphs, all sharing broader wings and greater bulk than any other falcon.
raptor