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 Flamingo
The largest flamingo species, with pale pink body plumage that hides bold black flight feathers revealed only in flight.
wading bird
Green Junglefowl
An Indonesian junglefowl covered in glossy, scale-patterned green-black feathers, with a rounded, multicolored comb unlike any other junglefowl species.
gamebird
Masked Booby
The largest booby species, with a clean white body set off by black flight feathers, a black tail, and a dark facial mask around the bill.
seabird
Bohemian Waxwing
A sleek, crested songbird best known for the bright red, wax-like tips on its wing feathers, which give the species its name.
songbird
Golden-tailed Woodpecker
An African woodpecker with bold spotting on the underparts rather than barring, plus a golden tint to the tail feathers that gives the species its name.
woodpecker
Morepork
New Zealand's small native owl, named for its call and known to Maori as ruru, with dark brown feathers mottled with pale buff spotting and streaked underparts.
owl
White-breasted Nuthatch
The White-breasted Nuthatch is a tree-climbing songbird whose clean blue-gray back and pure white face and breast feathers are easy to separate from most other backyard species.
songbird
Firecrest
The Firecrest is one of Europe's smallest songbirds, a mite of a bird whose soft, downy contour feathers are topped with a blazing orange-and-black crown stripe unlike any similarly sized species.
songbird
Glaucous-winged Gull
A common gull of the North Pacific coast, the Glaucous-winged Gull shows pale gray wingtip feathers with little or no black, differing subtly from most other large gulls, and frequently hybridizes with related species.
seabird
Southern Boobook
Australia's most familiar and widespread owl, named for its distinctive 'boo-book' call, with dark brown feathers boldly spotted white above and streaked buff below.
owl
Indigo Bunting
A small eastern songbird whose breeding males appear an intense, uniform iridescent blue with no other markings, while females are entirely plain brown, making feathers of the two sexes look like different species.
songbird
Short-toed Snake Eagle
The Short-toed Snake Eagle is a pale-bellied Eurasian eagle with brown upperparts, a mottled brown breast, finely barred flight and tail feathers, and a large owl-like head adapted for scanning the ground for reptile prey.
raptor
Laughing Owl
An extinct New Zealand owl known for its odd, laughter-like call, with soft brown mottled plumage and a paler facial area; now known only from museum specimens.
owl
Brown Hawk-Owl
The Brown Hawk-Owl is a widespread Asian owl with a hawk-like, tuftless head, dark brown upperparts, and rufous-streaked white underparts.
owl
Great Spotted Woodpecker
The Great Spotted Woodpecker is a striking black-and-white bird with bold white wing patches, a crimson undertail, and stiff, pointed tail feathers adapted for bracing against tree trunks while excavating and drumming.
woodpecker
Iberian Green Woodpecker
The Iberian Peninsula's counterpart to the Eurasian Green Woodpecker, recently recognized as its own species, sharing the same green plumage and strongly ground-feeding habits.
woodpecker
Yellow Wagtail
The Yellow Wagtail is a slender summer-visiting songbird whose plumage is yellow from throat to undertail, set against an olive-green back, distinguishing its feathers from the more grey-toned wagtails.
songbird
Papuan Hawk-Owl
A little-known, long-tailed forest owl endemic to New Guinea, with a hawk-like reduced facial disc and boldly barred underparts.
owl
Little Gull
The smallest gull in the world, a delicate Eurasian species with rounded wings, a buoyant tern-like flight, and strikingly dark underwings that flash as it wheels over the water.
seabird
Northern Goshawk
The Northern Goshawk is the largest accipiter, a powerful forest hawk with slate-grey upperparts, a bold white eyebrow stripe, finely barred pale underparts, and fluffy white undertail feathers, built for powerful pursuit through mature forest.
raptor
Barking Owl
An Australian hawk-owl named for its dog-like barking call, gray-brown above and heavily streaked below, favoring open woodland and riverine forest.
owl
Eurasian Woodcock
The larger Eurasian relative of the American Woodcock, sharing the same dead-leaf camouflage pattern and forest-floor lifestyle, but with a grayer overall tone and a distinctive slow, owl-like display flight known as roding.
shorebird
Northern Hawk-Owl
A falcon-like, day-hunting owl of the boreal forest, with a long tail, pointed wings, and boldly barred underparts, often seen perched conspicuously atop treetops scanning for prey.
owl
Short-eared Owl
A wide-ranging owl of open grassland and marsh, notable for hunting in daylight on buoyant, moth-like wingbeats, with streaked buffy-brown plumage and ear tufts so small they are rarely visible.
owl