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.

Beavan's Bullfinch
A compact, orange-breasted bullfinch of Himalayan and Chinese mountain forests, easily told by its gray cap and bold pale wing bar.
songbird
Golden Conure
A strikingly golden-yellow Amazonian parrot with contrasting green wing feathers and a long tail.
parrot
Common Redshank
A vocal, alert wader with bright orange-red legs and a bold white trailing edge to the wing that flashes conspicuously in flight.
shorebird
Siberian Jay
A soft-plumaged jay of the northern boreal forest, easily recognized by its fluffy grey-brown body and rusty-orange wing and tail patches.
corvid
Song Thrush
A warm brown thrush with cream, finely spotted underparts and a distinctive buff-orange wash under the wing, smaller and more delicately marked than its larger thrush relatives.
songbird
Rainbow Lorikeet
The Rainbow Lorikeet is a brightly multicolored Australian parrot with a deep blue head, green back, and an orange breast band that make it unmistakable.
parrot
Common Tern
A widespread and familiar tern of coasts and inland waters, identified by its black cap, forked tail, red-orange bill with a black tip, and a dark wedge along the leading edge of the outer wing.
seabird
Mandarin Duck
An East Asian perching duck famed for the male's uniquely upright orange 'sail' feathers on the wing, among the most distinctive single feathers of any bird in the world.
waterfowl
Painted Stork
A large South Asian stork with a white-and-black body, a bold black breast band, and delicate pink-tinged wing plumes, identified further by its long, decurved yellow bill and bare orange face.
wading bird
Indian Roller
A brilliant blue-winged bird of South Asian farmland, revealing dazzling blue flight feathers when it takes to the air.
other
Rufous Treepie
A long-tailed corvid of the Indian subcontinent, warm rufous-orange with a black head and a pale wing patch, often heard before it is seen thanks to its loud, varied calls.
corvid
Flame-colored Tanager
A mountain-forest tanager of Mexico and Central America, the male Flame-colored Tanager combines orange-red body plumage with a distinctively black-streaked back and white wing bars.
songbird
Baird's Sandpiper
A long-winged, buff-toned sandpiper whose folded wingtips extend noticeably past the tail, giving it an elongated, tapered silhouette.
shorebird
Swainson's Hawk
Swainson's Hawk is a long-winged buteo of open grassland and prairie, typically showing a dark breast bib, paler belly, and notably dark flight feathers contrasting against paler underwing coverts, distinct from the broader-winged buteos it shares range with.
raptor
Varied Thrush
A strikingly patterned thrush of Pacific Northwest forests, combining a slate-gray back with burnt-orange underparts, eyebrow stripe, and wing bars, plus a bold dark breast band in males.
songbird
Swamp Sparrow
A reddish-winged marsh sparrow with a gray face and breast, closely tied to wetland vegetation year-round.
songbird
Red-shouldered Macaw
One of the smallest macaws, a compact green parrot of northern South America with a red patch at the bend of the wing and a subtle blue wash on the crown.
parrot
Tricolored Blackbird
The Tricolored Blackbird is a highly colonial marsh-nesting blackbird, similar to the Red-winged Blackbird but distinguished by a white (rather than yellow) border on its red shoulder patch.
songbird
Eurasian Teal
The Old World form of the common teal, closely related to the North American Green-winged Teal, told apart chiefly by a horizontal white scapular stripe rather than a vertical flank stripe.
waterfowl
Cinnamon Teal
A small dabbling duck whose male is a striking uniform cinnamon-red, sharing the same pale blue wing patch found in Blue-winged Teal and Northern Shoveler.
waterfowl
Brambling
A northern finch closely related to the Chaffinch, showing warm orange breast and shoulder feathers, a mottled black-and-orange back, and a bold white rump patch that flashes distinctively in flight.
songbird
Eleonora's Falcon
Eleonora's Falcon is a slender, long-winged falcon of Mediterranean sea cliffs, notable for breeding unusually late in the year to feed its young on autumn-migrating songbirds, and occurring in both pale and dark color morphs.
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
Rufous Hummingbird
A fiercely territorial western hummingbird whose males show extensive rufous-orange body feathers along with a brilliant iridescent orange-red throat, among the most cinnamon-toned hummingbirds in North America.
hummingbird