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.
Red Junglefowl
The wild ancestor of the domestic chicken, with males displaying glossy orange-gold neck hackles and long, curved, iridescent black tail feathers.
gamebird
Hawfinch
A bull-necked, massive-billed finch whose wing feathers include uniquely curved, hooked secondaries found in no other European songbird.
songbird
Scaled Dove
A small South American dove whose breast and neck feathers carry dark, crescent-shaped edges that overlap like fish scales.
dove pigeon
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
Crested Argus
A secretive forest pheasant renowned for the male's extraordinarily long tail feathers, among the longest of any bird, patterned with rows of pale eyespots. A tall, erectile crest and bare blue facial skin round out its distinctive appearance.
gamebird
Greater Prairie-Chicken
A grassland grouse of the central United States, known for the male's elongated neck feathers and orange air sacs displayed during energetic booming courtship gatherings.
gamebird
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
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
Metallic Pigeon
The Metallic Pigeon is a dark island pigeon named for the glossy green-and-purple iridescent sheen across its neck feathers, often paired with a contrasting white throat.
dove pigeon
Black Crowned Crane
A West and Central African crane closely related to the Grey Crowned Crane, distinguished by darker neck feathering and the same striking golden crest and boldly patterned wings.
wading bird
Common Wood Pigeon
Europe's largest common pigeon, easily identified by its soft blue-grey feathers, a bold white wing bar, and white neck patches absent in smaller relatives.
dove pigeon
Common Peafowl Spalding
An aviculture strain blending Green and Indian Peafowl ancestry, showing iridescent scaled neck feathers, a tall crest, and a long ornamental train that draws on the coloring of both parent lines.
gamebird
Rock Pigeon
A stocky, familiar city bird whose feather color is famously variable, though wild-type individuals retain a blue-gray body with two dark wingbars and an iridescent green-purple neck.
dove pigeon
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
Upland Sandpiper
A grassland shorebird with a small head, long neck, and long tail, the Upland Sandpiper shows richly patterned buffy-brown feathers with dark barring and a scaled look, entirely adapted to life away from water.
shorebird
Red-crowned Crane
One of the rarest cranes in the world, a large white East Asian crane with a black neck, a bare red crown, and elongated black secondary feathers that form a false 'tail' over its true white tail.
wading bird
Wilson's Phalarope
A slim, needle-billed shorebird of prairie wetlands, Wilson's Phalarope shows a striking chestnut neck stripe in breeding plumage and plain gray-and-white feathers otherwise, unusual among birds for its reversed sexual dichromatism.
shorebird
Temminck's Tragopan
A vividly colored Asian pheasant with rich orange-red plumage dotted in pearly white spots, best known for the male's inflatable blue throat lappet used in courtship display.
gamebird
American Robin
The American Robin is a familiar thrush whose warm orange breast feathers and plain gray-brown back feathers make it one of the easiest yard birds to identify from a single dropped feather.
songbird
Egyptian Vulture
The smallest and most lightly built Old World vulture, with creamy-white body feathers, black flight feathers, and a distinctive wedge-shaped tail.
raptor
Northern Raven
The largest songbird in the world, with massive black flight feathers and a distinctive wedge-shaped tail, plus shaggy throat feathers unlike any other corvid.
corvid
Ocellated Turkey
A striking Central American turkey with vivid blue-bronze iridescent body feathers and tail feathers marked with distinctive eye-shaped spots.
gamebird
Black Swan
An Australian swan with distinctively curled, sooty black-gray body feathers and a striking red bill, its white flight feathers hidden until the wings are spread.
waterfowl
Brown Creeper
A tree-trunk specialist whose mottled brown and buff feathers mimic bark texture perfectly, paired with stiff, pointed tail feathers that brace against trunks like a woodpecker's.
songbird