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.
Golden Eagle
A powerful upland raptor whose dark brown plumage and golden nape feathers give it its name, with young birds showing crisp white flight-feather patches that fade with age.
raptor
Mute Swan
An enormous, entirely white waterbird whose large, gently curved feathers are unmistakable simply by their sheer size among freshwater birds.
waterfowl
Tawny Owl
A stocky woodland owl whose bark-patterned, silent-edged feathers make it one of the most cryptically camouflaged birds in the forest.
owl
Brown Kiwi
A flightless, nocturnal New Zealand bird with shaggy, hair-like feathers and a long probing bill used to find invertebrates in leaf litter.
other
Hoatzin
An unusual, primitive-looking bird of Amazonian and Orinoco wetlands, with a spiky rufous crest, bright blue bare facial skin, and reddish eyes, known for chicks with clawed wings used to climb.
other
Downy Woodpecker
The smallest North American woodpecker, its black-and-white checkered feathers and short bill make it a common and easily identified backyard bird.
woodpecker
Indian Peafowl
One of the most recognizable birds in the world, with males displaying an iridescent blue neck and an immense fanning train of elongated feathers marked with large eyespots.
gamebird
Snowy Owl
A large, striking white owl of the high Arctic, whose feathers vary from nearly pure white in adult males to heavily barred in females and young birds, all cushioned by exceptionally dense feathering for cold protection.
owl
Tawny Frogmouth
A nocturnal Australian bird with mottled grey-brown feathers that mimic tree bark, allowing it to remain nearly invisible while perched motionless during the day.
other
Chimney Swift
A cigar-shaped aerial bird with uniformly sooty gray-brown plumage and stiff, spine-tipped tail feathers used to brace against vertical surfaces.
other
Wilson's Snipe
A secretive, superbly camouflaged marsh bird whose intricately patterned brown-and-buff feathers provide near-perfect concealment among wetland vegetation, with narrow outer tail feathers used to produce an eerie winnowing sound in flight.
shorebird
Common Whitethroat
A small, active warbler with a bright white throat contrasting a grey head, and warm chestnut fringes on the wing feathers that add color to an otherwise modest bird.
songbird
Wattled Crane
The largest crane in Africa, a grey wading bird with a black cap, striking white feathers hanging from the throat, and long fleshy wattles dangling below the face.
wading bird
Dark-eyed Junco
A familiar winter feeder bird, the Dark-eyed Junco flashes bright white outer tail feathers against a slate-gray or brown body when it flies.
songbird
Swallow-tailed Kite
A graceful, boldly two-toned raptor with a deeply forked tail, whose sharp black-and-white feathers are unlike almost any other North American bird of prey.
raptor
Snail Kite
A marsh-dwelling raptor with a thin, deeply curved bill for extracting apple snails, and feathers ranging from slaty gray in males to warm streaked brown in females and young birds.
raptor
Wedge-tailed Eagle
Australia's largest bird of prey, distinguished from all other eagles by its remarkably long, diamond-shaped tail feathers, the longest relative to body size of any eagle.
raptor
Carolina Wren
A chunky, warm rufous wren of southeastern thickets whose barred tail feathers and loud, ringing song make it one of the most conspicuous small birds around brushy yards.
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
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
Bald Eagle
North America's national bird, whose pure white head and tail feathers contrasting with dark brown body plumage make the adult unmistakable, though immatures take years to acquire this pattern.
raptor
Crested Caracara
A bold, long-legged raptor of southern South America's open grasslands, with a black cap, cream neck, and barred breast that make its feathers unmistakable among ground-foraging birds of prey.
raptor
Cedar Waxwing
A sleek, crested bird best known for the small, waxy red tips on its secondary wing feathers, paired with a soft brown-to-gray body and a bright yellow band across the tail tip.
songbird
Common Swift
The Common Swift is an almost entirely aerial bird with long, scythe-like flight feathers and uniformly sooty-brown plumage, built for a life spent on the wing far more than any songbird.
other