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.
Ovenbird
A ground-dwelling warbler that looks more like a small thrush, with heavily streaked underparts and a bold orange crown stripe bordered in black.
songbird
Kentucky Warbler
A bright yellow, olive-backed warbler of the forest floor, marked by bold black stripes framing the face like sideburns and a partial spectacle.
songbird
European Storm-Petrel
One of the smallest seabirds in the world, sooty black overall with a white rump patch, fluttering like a large bat low over the waves.
seabird
Nicobar Pigeon
The Nicobar Pigeon is a striking island pigeon with long, shimmering hackle-like neck feathers in shifting metallic greens and coppers, set off by a pure white tail.
dove pigeon
Ruddy Turnstone
A boldly patterned, harlequin-like shorebird known for flipping stones and debris in search of food, with breeding feathers combining rufous, black, and white in a striking tortoiseshell pattern.
shorebird
Grey Junglefowl
An Indian forest gamebird whose males have neck hackle feathers tipped with an unusual glassy, wax-like yellow spangle unlike any other bird.
gamebird
Great Argus
A pheasant of Southeast Asian rainforest famous for the male's extraordinarily elongated wing feathers, patterned with large eye-like spots and displayed in a dramatic fan during courtship.
gamebird
Red-bellied Woodpecker
A common eastern woodpecker with a finely barred, ladder-like back pattern unique among familiar woodpeckers, and a red cap or nape depending on sex.
woodpecker
Pheasant Pigeon
The Pheasant Pigeon is a shy, ground-dwelling New Guinea pigeon named for its long, pheasant-like tail and glossy, dark iridescent body.
dove pigeon
Olive-sided Flycatcher
A large-headed, big-chested flycatcher whose dark olive-gray flanks and white central stripe create a distinctive vest-like appearance.
songbird
Laughing Dove
A small, warm pinkish-cinnamon dove named for its bubbling, laugh-like coo, with a distinctive speckled black patch across the upper breast.
dove pigeon
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
Hutton's Vireo
Hutton's Vireo is a stocky, kinglet-like resident of Pacific coast evergreen woodlands, identified by its bold broken eyering and white wing bars.
songbird
Parasitic Jaeger
A sleek, agile seabird intermediate in size between the two other jaegers, identified in breeding adults by narrow, pointed central tail feathers and a swift, falcon-like flight.
seabird
Mottled Duck
A non-migratory dabbling duck of Gulf Coast and Florida wetlands that looks much like a female Mallard, best told apart by its plain, unstreaked pale throat.
waterfowl
Eurasian Wryneck
A cryptically patterned, bark-camouflaged relative of true woodpeckers that lacks their stiff tail and chisel bill, famous for twisting its neck in a slow, snake-like threat display.
woodpecker
Calliope Hummingbird
The smallest breeding bird in North America, notable for the male's streaked, wine-red gorget that splays outward like tiny rays rather than forming a solid patch.
hummingbird
White-winged Crossbill
A boreal finch with a crossed bill like its relative the Red Crossbill, but immediately told apart by two bold white wing bars on black wings.
songbird
Western Meadowlark
A grassland songbird nearly identical to the Eastern Meadowlark, with pale mottled upperparts, a yellow breast marked by a black V, and a rich, gurgling flute-like song.
songbird
Turquoise-browed Motmot
This Central American motmot is best known for its bright turquoise eyebrow stripe and long tail ending in bare-shafted rackets that it swings like a pendulum.
other
Northern Lapwing
A distinctive Eurasian plover with iridescent green-black upperparts, a long wispy black crest, and broad, rounded wings that give it a floppy, butterfly-like flight.
shorebird
New Zealand Bellbird
The New Zealand Bellbird is an olive-green honeyeater-relative renowned for its clear, bell-like song, common in native forest across New Zealand.
songbird
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
Dunnock
An unassuming, sparrow-like songbird with soft grey head and breast feathers and a streaked brown back, easily overlooked but distinct once compared with true sparrows.
songbird