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
Chestnut-quilled Rock Pigeon
The Chestnut-quilled Rock Pigeon is an Australian escarpment specialist whose otherwise grey-brown plumage reveals bold chestnut patches on the flight feathers when it takes wing.
dove pigeon
Blue Crane
South Africa's national bird, a pale blue-grey crane with unusually long, trailing wing-tip feathers that can nearly brush the ground when the bird is standing.
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
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
Black-crowned Night Heron
A stocky, short-necked heron with striking red eyes, most active at dusk and night, sporting a glossy black cap and back against pale gray wings.
wading bird
Gila Woodpecker
A common Sonoran Desert woodpecker with a plain gray-tan head and body set off by a boldly barred black-and-white back and wings.
woodpecker
Common Chaffinch
A common European finch with males showing a blue-grey crown and warm pinkish-brown breast, and females a more subdued olive-brown, both sharing bold double white wing bars and a greenish rump.
songbird
American Kestrel
The smallest and most colorful falcon in North America, a common sight perched on roadside wires, told by its rufous back and tail and, in males, contrasting blue-gray wings.
raptor
Turkey Vulture
A widespread scavenger known for its two-toned wings, silvery flight feathers set against a dark body, and its habit of soaring in a shallow V with a distinctive teetering flight.
raptor
Audubon's Oriole
A secretive oriole of dense riparian thickets, showing a solid black hood and wings against a yellow body, and best known for its slow, deliberate whistled song.
songbird
Diamond Dove
One of the smallest doves in the world, a soft gray-brown Australian desert species with tiny white-spotted wings and a bright red ring around the eye.
dove pigeon
Collared Forest Falcon
A large, owl-faced Neotropical forest raptor with short rounded wings and a long barred tail, known for a dark neck collar and loud calls echoing through the forest at dawn and dusk.
raptor
Grey Peacock-Pheasant
A grey-brown forest pheasant whose wing and tail feathers are dotted with shimmering blue-green eye-spots, used in display rather than the long trailing tails of many pheasant relatives.
gamebird
Green Imperial Pigeon
The Green Imperial Pigeon is a large forest pigeon whose back and wings show a metallic bronze-green sheen contrasting with pale grey underparts.
dove pigeon
Derbyan Parakeet
A large, long-tailed parakeet with soft grey-blue body plumage, green wings, and a bright coral-red bill.
parrot
Common Linnet
An open-country finch with a warm brown body overall, breeding males adding a crimson forehead and breast patch atop a grey head and chestnut back, with pale wing and tail panels visible in flight.
songbird
Hoatzin
An unusual, primitive-looking bird of Amazonian and Orinoco wetlands, with a spiky rufous crest, bright blue bare facial skin, and reddish eyes, known for chicks with clawed wings used to climb.
other
Spot-winged Falconet
A small, distinctive South American falcon of arid scrub and Chaco woodland, showing white-spotted wings against brown-grey upperparts and streaked buffy underparts.
raptor
Altamira Oriole
The largest oriole regularly found in the United States, showing a bright orange body, black back and wings, and a bold orange shoulder patch, and known for building the longest hanging nests among North American orioles.
songbird
Grey-crowned Rosy-Finch
A North American alpine finch with a grey patch on the back of the head and rosy-pink feathering on the wings and belly against an otherwise brown body.
songbird
Montagu's Harrier
Montagu's Harrier is the slimmest and most lightly built of the Eurasian harriers, males pale grey with a distinctive black wing-bar, and females and juveniles rufous-brown, all adapted to graceful, buoyant flight over open farmland and steppe.
raptor
Gyrfalcon
The largest falcon in the world, a powerful hunter of the high Arctic occurring in white, gray, and dark plumage morphs, all sharing broader wings and greater bulk than any other falcon.
raptor
Mountain Imperial Pigeon
The Mountain Imperial Pigeon is a large, heavy-bodied forest pigeon with pale grey underparts contrasting against a deep maroon-brown back and wings.
dove pigeon