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.
Northern Flicker
A large, brown-barred woodpecker best identified by the bright yellow or salmon-red shafts of its flight feathers, along with a black chest crescent and spotted underside.
woodpecker
Eurasian Blue Tit
A small, brightly colored garden tit with a blue crown and wings, yellow underparts, and white cheeks bordered by a thin black eye-line, among the most colorful common feathers in European gardens.
songbird
Blue-and-yellow Macaw
A large, brilliantly two-toned macaw with deep blue upperparts and golden-yellow underparts, a green forehead patch, and bare white facial skin crossed by narrow lines of small feathers.
parrot
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
Eastern Bluebird
A small, vividly colored thrush whose blue feathers are produced by feather structure rather than pigment, giving them a shifting brightness depending on the angle of light.
songbird
Cryptic Forest Falcon
A recently described forest-falcon so visually similar to its relatives that it was only distinguished by its distinct voice - its feathers are essentially indistinguishable from those of the Barred Forest Falcon complex.
raptor
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
Vesper Sparrow
A streaky grassland sparrow best identified by white outer tail feathers and a small chestnut shoulder patch.
songbird
Stilt Sandpiper
A long-legged, long-billed sandpiper whose breeding-plumage feathers are boldly barred across the underparts, giving it a strikingly different look from the plain grays of its winter attire.
shorebird
Blue Jay
The Blue Jay is a large, vocal corvid whose bold blue, black-barred, white-tipped wing and tail feathers are among the most instantly recognizable of any North American songbird.
corvid
Hooded Vulture
A small, slender African vulture with plain dark brown plumage and a distinctive whitish downy hood of feathers on the head and neck.
raptor
Black Kite
The Black Kite is a widespread Old World raptor with dull dark brown plumage, a slightly forked tail, and finely barred flight feathers, notable for its adaptability to human-altered landscapes including cities and rubbish sites.
raptor
Chihuahuan Raven
A desert raven of the American Southwest, smaller than the Common Raven, with hidden white feather bases at the neck.
corvid
Temminck's Stint
A small, plain-plumaged stint that favors quiet freshwater edges over open mudflats, distinguished from its rufous relatives by generally duller upperpart feathers and distinctive white outer tail feathers.
shorebird
Northern Goshawk
The Northern Goshawk is the largest accipiter, a powerful forest hawk with slate-grey upperparts, a bold white eyebrow stripe, finely barred pale underparts, and fluffy white undertail feathers, built for powerful pursuit through mature forest.
raptor
Blue-throated Macaw
A large blue-and-yellow macaw with a distinctive patch of blue feathers on the throat, native to a small area of seasonally flooded savanna in Bolivia.
parrot
Osprey
The Osprey is a fish-eating raptor with dark brown upperparts, a white head marked by a bold dark eye-stripe, white underparts, and long, angled wings showing a distinctive dark carpal patch and barred flight feathers.
raptor
Meadow Pipit
The Meadow Pipit is a small, streaky brown songbird of open country, its cryptic, heavily streaked feathers providing camouflage against grass and heather.
songbird
Chipping Sparrow
The Chipping Sparrow is a small, neat sparrow recognized in breeding plumage by its bright rufous crown feathers over a clean, unstreaked gray breast.
songbird
Garganey
A small, strongly migratory Eurasian dabbling duck; breeding males show a bold white eyebrow stripe and long, drooping striped scapular feathers, while females resemble other small brown teal.
waterfowl
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
Lesser Rhea
A smaller relative of the Greater Rhea found in Patagonia and the high Andes, with soft mottled brown plumage flecked with pale feather tips that give it a speckled appearance.
other
Military Macaw
A green macaw with a small red forehead patch and blue-edged wing and tail feathers, found in foothill forests and canyon country from Mexico to South America.
parrot
Pine Siskin
The Pine Siskin is a small, heavily streaked finch whose brown feathers show flashes of yellow in the wings and tail, and whose winter range shifts unpredictably year to year.
songbird