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.
Rock Dove
The wild ancestor of the familiar city pigeon, typically blue-grey with bold black wing bars and a white rump, though feral descendants show enormous color variation.
dove pigeon
Whiskered Tern
A compact marsh tern that turns a striking dark slate-gray across the body in breeding plumage, with a crisp white stripe dividing the black cap from the gray cheek.
seabird
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
Red-billed Quelea
A small African weaver famous for forming the largest flocks of any wild bird, with breeding males sporting a bold black or white facial mask and a bright red bill.
songbird
Jabiru
The largest flying bird of the Americas, an enormous white stork with a bare black head and neck marked by a distinctive red collar at the base, found in wetlands from Mexico to Argentina.
wading bird
Collared Falconet
One of the tiniest falcons in the world, showing glossy black upperparts, a crisp white collar, and a small rufous forehead patch across forest edges of South and Southeast Asia.
raptor
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.
owl
Evening Grosbeak
A large, boldly patterned finch of northern and montane conifer forests, males showing a striking combination of black, bright yellow, and white feathers along with an oversized pale bill.
songbird
Eastern Towhee
A large, ground-dwelling sparrow relative with bold black (or brown), white, and rufous plumage, often first noticed scratching noisily through leaf litter in dense thickets.
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
Connecticut Warbler
A large, elusive warbler with a full gray hood and a bold, complete white eye-ring, known for walking rather than hopping and for skulking through dense low vegetation.
songbird
Common Merganser
The Common Merganser is a large, sleek fish-eating duck whose male combines a glossy dark green head with an almost entirely white body faintly tinged pink.
waterfowl
Black Tern
A distinctive marsh tern that turns almost entirely sooty-black during the breeding season, a striking departure from the pale gray-and-white pattern typical of most terns.
seabird
Barrow's Goldeneye
Barrow's Goldeneye is a striking western and northern diving duck distinguished from the similar Common Goldeneye by a crescent-shaped white face patch and bolder black markings on the back.
waterfowl
African Pygmy Falcon
One of the smallest raptors in the world, this tiny falcon of African thornveld shows crisp white underparts against a grey or chestnut back, often nesting alongside colonial weaverbirds.
raptor
Reed Bunting
The Reed Bunting is a wetland-associated songbird whose breeding males show a striking black head and white collar against streaked brown upperparts, while females and winter birds are more subtly patterned brown.
songbird
Scarlet Ibis
A brilliantly colored South American and Caribbean ibis, entirely vivid scarlet-red apart from black wingtips, closely related to the American White Ibis but far more vividly pigmented.
wading bird
Ruff
A shorebird famous for its extraordinary breeding-season variability, males growing elaborate, individually distinct neck ruffs and head tufts in colors ranging from black to chestnut to pure white.
shorebird
Reeves's Pheasant
A pheasant of central China renowned for having the longest tail feathers of any bird in its family, combined with golden, black-scaled body plumage and a bold black-and-white head pattern.
gamebird
Long-tailed Tit
A tiny, round-bodied tit with an extraordinarily long tail exceeding its body length, patterned in black, white, and soft dusky pink, among the most distinctive silhouettes in European woodland.
songbird
Long-billed Corella
A white Australian cockatoo with an unusually long, curved upper bill, the Long-billed Corella shows more extensive pink-red coloring on the face and breast than its close relatives.
parrot
Eurasian Collared-Dove
A pale, stocky dove readily identified by the black half-collar on its nape and its square tail's bold white terminal band, now common across much of North America.
dove pigeon
Blue-and-yellow Macaw
A large, brilliantly two-toned macaw with deep blue upperparts and golden-yellow underparts, a green forehead patch, and bare white facial skin crossed by narrow lines of small feathers.
parrot
Black-headed Grosbeak
The western counterpart of the Rose-breasted Grosbeak, this species trades the rose-red breast for a warm cinnamon-orange body beneath a solid black head and boldly patterned black-and-white wings.
songbird