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.
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
African Fish Eagle
A strikingly tricolor eagle of African waters, with a crisp white head, chest, and tail set sharply against rich chestnut body plumage and black flight feathers.
raptor
Grey Peacock-Pheasant
A grey-brown forest pheasant whose wing and tail feathers are dotted with shimmering blue-green eye-spots, used in display rather than the long trailing tails of many pheasant relatives.
gamebird
Wrentit
The Wrentit is a secretive, chaparral-dwelling songbird known for its long, often upright tail and its bouncing-ball song, more often heard than seen in dense Pacific coast scrub.
songbird
Roseate Tern
A pale, elegant tern with unusually long tail streamers and a delicate pink blush to the breeding-season underparts, generally scarcer and more restricted to select coastal colonies than its close relatives.
seabird
Falcated Duck
An East Asian dabbling duck; breeding males show an iridescent bronze-green head and dramatically elongated, sickle-shaped tertial feathers drooping over the tail, unmatched by any other duck.
waterfowl
Eurasian Treecreeper
The Eurasian Treecreeper has cryptic, bark-patterned upperpart feathers that provide near-perfect camouflage against tree trunks, paired with stiff, pointed tail feathers that brace it as it spirals up trees.
songbird
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
Sabine's Gull
A strikingly patterned Arctic-breeding gull whose bold black, white, and gray tricolored wing pattern and forked tail make it one of the most distinctive gulls in flight.
seabird
Russet-crowned Motmot
Found in dry forest of western Mexico, the Russet-crowned Motmot shows a warm rufous-brown crown against green body plumage and a slow-swinging racket tail.
other
Rock Ptarmigan
A circumpolar tundra grouse that turns from mottled gray-brown in summer to pure white in winter, always retaining black tail feathers as a year-round field mark.
gamebird
Prairie Warbler
A small yellow wood-warbler with chestnut streaks on the back and bold facial markings, common in shrubby old fields and pine barrens, often seen bobbing its tail.
songbird
Hermit Thrush
A quiet, spot-breasted thrush best known for its habit of slowly raising and lowering its rufous tail, a useful clue among the similar brown Catharus thrushes.
songbird
Grey Fantail
A small, restless Australian songbird, the Grey Fantail flits through woodland foliage with its broad tail fanned wide, showing gray upperparts and warm buff underparts.
songbird
Mikado Pheasant
A striking Taiwanese endemic pheasant, with males cloaked in glossy blue-black plumage set off by a bold white wing bar and a long, narrowly white-barred tail.
gamebird
Gray Peacock-pheasant
A forest-floor pheasant of South and Southeast Asia whose gray-brown feathers are dotted with brilliant blue-green and purple eyespots, most striking across the spread tail.
gamebird
Golden-winged Sunbird
A striking East African highland sunbird whose breeding males combine iridescent bronze-green plumage with bright yellow wing patches and long, elegant tail streamers.
songbird
European Greenfinch
A stocky, olive-green finch with a stout conical bill, brightened by bold yellow flashes along the edges of its wing and tail feathers, especially vivid in breeding males.
songbird
Eastern Phoebe
A plain-plumaged flycatcher recognized more by its tail-wagging habit than bright colors, with grayish-brown feathers above and a faint yellow wash on white underparts.
songbird
Rose-ringed Parakeet
A slender, bright green parakeet with a long pointed tail, best known for the males' narrow black-and-rose neck ring, and now familiar as a naturalized bird in cities well beyond its native range.
parrot
Eurasian Nuthatch
The Eurasian Nuthatch is a stocky, tree-climbing songbird with slate-blue upperpart feathers and warm buff-orange underparts, plus short, stiff tail feathers adapted for headfirst descents down tree trunks.
songbird
Sooty Grouse
A large Pacific coast grouse closely related to the Dusky Grouse, males dark sooty grey with a pale grey tail band and inflatable yellow neck sacs used in display.
gamebird
Pied Currawong
A large, mostly black Australian songbird, the Pied Currawong is marked by white patches on the wings and tail tip, and a bright yellow eye that stands out against its dark plumage.
songbird
Mourning Dove
A common, slender dove whose long, pointed, white-edged tail feathers and soft muted tan-brown coloring make it a familiar sight and sound across open country.
dove pigeon