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.
Tufted Titmouse
The Tufted Titmouse is a common eastern woodland bird known for its jaunty gray crest feathers and soft, plain-gray body feathers washed with rust along the flanks.
songbird
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
Lesser Black-backed Gull
A medium-large gull of European waters with dark slate-gray to blackish mantle feathers and yellow legs, the Lesser Black-backed Gull has expanded its range widely and increasingly turns up well inland.
seabird
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
Bateleur
A striking African eagle relative known for its extremely short tail and rocking, tightrope-walker flight style, with black body plumage, a chestnut back, and pale flight feathers.
raptor
Manx Shearwater
A slim, black-and-white seabird known for its low, banking flight that alternately flashes dark upperparts and white underparts as it 'shears' over waves.
seabird
Laysan Albatross
A North Pacific albatross with a clean white head and body contrasting against dark gray upperwings, distinguished from its dark-bodied Black-footed relative by its predominantly pale plumage.
seabird
Indian Roller
A brilliant blue-winged bird of South Asian farmland, revealing dazzling blue flight feathers when it takes to the air.
other
California Condor
One of the largest flying birds in the world, with enormous black flight feathers and bold white underwing patches.
raptor
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
Sagebrush Sparrow
A pale gray-headed sparrow of Great Basin sagebrush country, with a white eye-ring and a dark central breast spot.
songbird
King Vulture
A striking tropical vulture with mostly creamy white plumage, jet-black flight and tail feathers, and a vividly multicolored bare head.
raptor
Cape Gannet
A large white seabird closely related to the Northern Gannet, distinguished by a black tail and a black band crossing the secondary flight feathers.
seabird
Prairie Falcon
A pale falcon of arid western North America, best identified in flight by a distinctive dark patch on the underwing near the body, set against otherwise pale sandy-brown plumage.
raptor
Palm Tanager
A close relative of the Blue-gray Tanager, the Palm Tanager shows a more subdued olive-gray to greenish tone overall with darker wings and little of the brighter blue accent of its cousin.
songbird
Red-billed Streamertail
Jamaica's national bird, the Red-billed Streamertail is famed for the male's extraordinarily long, curved tail feathers that produce a humming sound in flight.
hummingbird
Orange-winged Amazon
The Orange-winged Amazon is a mid-sized, widespread South American parrot named for the bright orange patch revealed in its flight feathers.
parrot
Golden-crowned Kinglet
A tiny, hyperactive conifer specialist named for its glowing crown patch, with soft olive body feathers and delicately edged flight feathers scaled to its diminutive size.
songbird
American Tree Sparrow
A hardy winter sparrow of snowy fields, recognizable by its rufous cap and the single dark spot centered on an otherwise plain gray breast.
songbird
Sooty Shearwater
A dark, uniformly sooty-brown shearwater whose silvery-white underwing linings provide a striking flash of contrast during its long, powerful ocean flights.
seabird
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
Mourning Warbler
A skulking, gray-hooded warbler of dense thickets, with adult males showing a dark, mottled patch across the throat and upper breast and no eye-ring.
songbird
American Herring Gull
The North American counterpart to the Eurasian Herring Gull, the American Herring Gull shows very similar pale gray-and-white plumage with black wingtip spots, but with subtly darker gray tones and pinkish legs.
seabird
Eurasian Woodcock
The larger Eurasian relative of the American Woodcock, sharing the same dead-leaf camouflage pattern and forest-floor lifestyle, but with a grayer overall tone and a distinctive slow, owl-like display flight known as roding.
shorebird