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.
Black Phoebe
A dark, tail-wagging flycatcher almost always found perched near water, easily told by its sooty black body and clean white belly.
songbird
Black Swan
An Australian swan with distinctively curled, sooty black-gray body feathers and a striking red bill, its white flight feathers hidden until the wings are spread.
waterfowl
Black Stork
A shy, forest-loving relative of the White Stork with glossy black plumage, a white belly, and a red bill and legs, favoring quiet rivers and wetlands far from people.
wading bird
Black Sparrowhawk
The largest African accipiter, occurring in a striking pied form with sharply demarcated black upperparts and white underparts as well as an all-black melanistic form, both built for fast pursuit through forest canopy.
raptor
Black Falcon
The Black Falcon is an uncommon, uniformly dark falcon of arid inland Australia, one of the least frequently encountered Australian raptors due to its remote range and low density.
raptor
Black Francolin
A boldly patterned gamebird with males showing black plumage dotted with white spots and a chestnut neck collar, while females are cryptically mottled brown.
gamebird
Black Heron
An African heron cloaked entirely in slate-black plumage, famous for spreading its wings into a feeding "umbrella" over the water to lure fish into shade.
wading bird
Black Kite
The Black Kite is a widespread Old World raptor with dull dark brown plumage, a slightly forked tail, and finely barred flight feathers, notable for its adaptability to human-altered landscapes including cities and rubbish sites.
raptor
American Oystercatcher
A large pied shorebird of American coastlines, with a black head and neck, brown rather than black back, and a long orange-red bill used to open shellfish.
shorebird
American Crow
A large, all-black corvid found nearly continent-wide, whose sturdy glossy-black feathers with a slight iridescent sheen are among the most commonly found large feathers in North America.
corvid
Black-necked Swan
A striking South American swan with a pure white body set off by a jet-black head and neck, plus a bright red facial knob at the base of the bill.
waterfowl
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
Black-backed Woodpecker
A fire-and-beetle-kill specialist of North American conifer forests, told from the Three-toed Woodpeckers by its solid, unbarred glossy black back.
woodpecker
Black-necked Stilt
A tall, slender American shorebird in crisp black-and-white plumage, best known for its extremely long, thin pink-red legs that trail well beyond the tail in flight.
shorebird
Pacific Black Duck
The Pacific Black Duck is a mottled dark brown dabbling duck with a distinctive pale face crossed by dark eye stripes, common on wetlands across Australia and the Pacific.
waterfowl
Common Black Hawk
A stocky, broad-winged hawk of wooded streams and mangroves, easily told from other dark raptors by its nearly all-black plumage crossed by a single wide white tail band.
raptor
Black Rosy-Finch
A dark, blackish-brown alpine finch of western North America's highest peaks, set off by rosy-pink wing feathering and a grey crown patch.
songbird
Black-winged Stilt
A strikingly patterned wader whose feathers form a sharp black-and-white contrast, set off by improbably long pink-red legs.
shorebird
Black-throated Sparrow
A striking desert sparrow with a bold black throat patch framed by crisp white stripes on an otherwise plain gray face.
songbird
Black-thighed Falconet
One of the smallest raptors in the world, this Southeast Asian falconet shows glossy black upperparts and thighs against white underparts, with a small rufous forehead patch as its key mark.
raptor
Black-headed Heron
A large grey African heron with a solidly dark head and nape, often seen stalking dry grassland and farmland well away from water.
wading bird
Black-faced Spoonbill
The smallest and one of the rarest spoonbill species, an all-white East Asian wading bird with a black bare face and a slender black spoon-shaped bill.
wading bird
Black-faced Bunting
A widespread East Asian bunting with a greenish-grey head, black face mask on males, and yellow-tinged underparts.
songbird
Black-and-white Owl
A striking Neotropical wood owl patterned in crisp black-and-white barring, with no ear tufts and a bright yellow-orange facial disc and bill that contrast sharply with its otherwise monochrome plumage.
owl