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.
Nanday Conure
A green South American conure easily told by its solid black head, or hood, along with a small blue patch on the breast and red-feathered thighs.
parrot
Willie Wagtail
A bold black-and-white fantail relative common across Australia, the Willie Wagtail is known for constantly wagging its long tail from side to side while perched or foraging.
songbird
Bank Swallow
A small, plain brown-and-white swallow told from other species by a clean brown breast band across otherwise white underparts.
songbird
Black-headed Caique
A small, sharply patterned Amazonian parrot with a black crown, orange cheeks, and clean white underparts.
parrot
Ring Ouzel
A blackbird relative of upland Europe, told from the Eurasian Blackbird by its bold white crescent across the breast and pale-scaled wing feathers.
songbird
Pygmy Nuthatch
The Pygmy Nuthatch is a tiny, highly social western pine-forest nuthatch whose dull gray-brown cap and small feather size distinguish it from other nuthatches.
songbird
Fulvous-breasted Woodpecker
A small South Asian pied woodpecker whose warm, buffy-fulvous breast streaking sets it apart from the whiter underparts of related pied woodpeckers.
woodpecker
Bearded Vulture
A striking mountain vulture with long narrow wings, a long wedge-shaped tail, and underparts that range from creamy white to rich rusty-orange, often stained by iron-rich soil.
raptor
Wattled Crane
The largest crane in Africa, a grey wading bird with a black cap, striking white feathers hanging from the throat, and long fleshy wattles dangling below the face.
wading bird
Emperor Goose
A small, stocky goose with a bold black-and-white scalloped body pattern, a white head and neck often stained rust-orange, and a black throat.
waterfowl
Black-headed Gull
A small, gregarious Old World gull whose chocolate-brown (not black) hood and white leading-edge wing wedge make it easy to pick out from mixed flocks.
seabird
Canada Goose
A large, familiar goose whose black neck feathers set off by a bold white chinstrap patch make it one of the easiest waterfowl to recognize from a single feather cluster.
waterfowl
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
Firecrest
The Firecrest is one of Europe's smallest songbirds, a mite of a bird whose soft, downy contour feathers are topped with a blazing orange-and-black crown stripe unlike any similarly sized species.
songbird
Green Sandpiper
A dark, almost blackish sandpiper with a contrasting white rump and blackish underwing, often flushed abruptly from small secluded pools.
shorebird
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
Buckley's Forest Falcon
A large, rarely seen forest-falcon of the western Amazon, with dark upperparts and bold, wide white barring below that helps separate it from smaller relatives.
raptor
Common Kingfisher
A small, jewel-like bird whose brilliant structurally iridescent blue back feathers and warm orange underparts make it one of the most vividly colored birds along any river.
other
Green-winged Macaw
A very large red macaw distinguished from the similar scarlet macaw by a broad green wing band and thin lines of red feathers crossing its bare white face.
parrot
Mallard
The world's most familiar duck, identifiable from almost any single wing feather by its glossy blue speculum bordered in white, shared by both sexes.
waterfowl
Lazuli Bunting
A small western North American bunting, the male Lazuli Bunting pairs a turquoise-blue head and back with a warm orange breast band and clean white belly.
songbird
Ruddy Shelduck
A warm orange-cinnamon duck with a paler, buffy head, solid black flight feathers, and a bright white patch on the upperwing bordered by a glossy green speculum.
waterfowl
Marsh Wren
A small, vocal wren of cattail marshes, identified by its bold black-and-white streaked back and habit of singing loudly from within dense reed cover.
songbird
Lucy's Warbler
One of the smallest and palest North American warblers, essentially plain gray and white apart from a bright rufous rump patch and a concealed rufous crown spot.
songbird