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.
Rufous Owl
The Rufous Owl is a large, richly colored hawk-owl of northern Australia and New Guinea, its warm rufous-brown feathers finely barred throughout and its head rounded without ear tufts.
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Crested Owl
A dark, richly colored Neotropical rainforest owl with unusually long, prominent whitish ear-tuft feathers and a bold white eyebrow stripe against otherwise dark brown plumage.
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Chaco Owl
A dark-eyed true owl of the Gran Chaco woodlands, closely related to the Rufous-legged Owl, with densely barred brown plumage suited to dry scrub forest.
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Barred Owl
A large, round-headed owl of eastern North American forests, known for its dark eyes and the distinctive combination of horizontal chest barring and vertical belly streaking on its plumage.
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Barn Owl
An elegant, heart-faced owl whose golden, finely speckled upperparts and ghostly pale underside make its feathers instantly distinctive among owls.
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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.
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Burrowing Owl
A small, long-legged owl of open grassland and prairie that nests underground in burrows, with brown, white-spotted plumage above and barred underparts, often active during daylight.
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Sooty Owl
A dark, striking barn-owl relative of Australian and New Guinean rainforest, its sooty gray-black feathers finely speckled with silvery white, unlike any other owl in its range.
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Tawny Owl
A stocky woodland owl whose bark-patterned, silent-edged feathers make it one of the most cryptically camouflaged birds in the forest.
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Striped Owl
The Striped Owl is a boldly streaked, long-eared owl of open country across Latin America, easily recognized by its buffy plumage, dark streaking, and prominent ear tufts.
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Spotted Owl
An old-growth forest specialist of western North America, dark brown overall with distinctive rounded white spotting across its plumage, dependent on structurally complex mature forest.
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Powerful Owl
Australia's largest owl, a powerful hawk-owl of eucalypt forest that preys on tree-dwelling mammals, its underparts marked with bold dark chevrons rather than simple streaks or bars.
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Mottled Owl
A medium-sized, ear-tuftless wood owl of Neotropical forest, its feathers finely mottled in dark and pale brown, with whitish eyebrows and buffy, streaked underparts.
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Jamaican Owl
The Jamaican Owl is an island-endemic owl found only in Jamaica's forests and woodlands, with rich brown, finely mottled plumage and short ear tufts.
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Boreal Owl
A small, secretive owl of northern boreal and subalpine conifer forests, marked by dark brown plumage boldly spotted with white and a distinctive dark-rimmed facial disc.
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Flammulated Owl
A tiny, highly secretive migratory owl of western pine forests, camouflaged to match bark with a fine mottled gray-and-rufous pattern, and unusual among small owls for its dark eyes.
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Fearful Owl
The Fearful Owl is a large, poorly known owl endemic to a few islands in the Solomon Islands, with rich brown, mottled plumage and a rounded, tuftless head.
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Elf Owl
The smallest owl in the world, a sparrow-sized desert dweller that nests in old woodpecker holes in saguaro cacti and streamside trees, with finely mottled grey-brown plumage.
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Hume's Owl
Hume's Owl is a pale, desert-adapted tawny owl of the Middle East whose sandy, finely barred feathers blend seamlessly with rock and canyon walls.
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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.
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Fulvous Owl
A tawny-toned relative of the Barred Owl found in Central American highland forests, recognizable by its warm fulvous coloring and heavy barring.
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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.
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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.
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Verreaux's Eagle-Owl
Africa's largest owl, a pale gray giant of savanna and riverine woodland, instantly recognizable in life by its bare pink eyelids, with correspondingly oversized, finely patterned feathers.
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