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.
Common Starling
A glossy, iridescent songbird whose feathers shift from heavily spangled with pale spots in fresh winter plumage to sleek and nearly spot-free by the breeding season.
songbird
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
Northern Bald Ibis
An ibis with glossy black, iridescent plumage, a bare red face, and a shaggy ruff of elongated feathers trailing from the back of its head.
wading bird
Red-billed Quelea
A small African weaver famous for forming the largest flocks of any wild bird, with breeding males sporting a bold black or white facial mask and a bright red bill.
songbird
Golden Eagle
A powerful upland raptor whose dark brown plumage and golden nape feathers give it its name, with young birds showing crisp white flight-feather patches that fade with age.
raptor
Sage Thrasher
The smallest and most compact North American thrasher, a streaky gray-brown bird of sagebrush country with a shorter, straighter bill than its relatives.
songbird
Grey-headed Lovebird
A small lovebird from Madagascar showing strong sexual dimorphism: males have a pale grey head and breast against a green body, while females are entirely green.
parrot
Fish Crow
A slender, glossy all-black corvid of coastal and riverine eastern North America, distinguished from the larger American Crow mainly by voice and slightly smaller size.
corvid
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
Least Sandpiper
The smallest sandpiper in the world, distinguished from other tiny peeps by its yellow-green legs and finely mottled brown upperparts.
shorebird
Green Sandpiper
A dark, almost blackish sandpiper with a contrasting white rump and blackish underwing, often flushed abruptly from small secluded pools.
shorebird
Little Auk
The smallest auk of the North Atlantic, a dumpy, tightly packed little bird with a black-and-white pattern and a stubby bill, breeding in immense colonies in the high Arctic.
seabird
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
Tawny Frogmouth
A nocturnal Australian bird with mottled grey-brown feathers that mimic tree bark, allowing it to remain nearly invisible while perched motionless during the day.
other
Reeves's Pheasant
A pheasant of central China renowned for having the longest tail feathers of any bird in its family, combined with golden, black-scaled body plumage and a bold black-and-white head pattern.
gamebird
Northern Cassowary
A very large, flightless rainforest bird of New Guinea, covered in coarse, hair-like black plumage that contrasts with vividly colored blue-and-red bare skin on the head and neck. A single throat wattle and a tall bony casque distinguish it from its relatives.
other
Grey Warbler
The Grey Warbler is one of New Zealand's smallest birds, a plain grey-brown insect-eater best known for its long, trilling song rather than its understated plumage.
songbird
Calliope Hummingbird
The smallest breeding bird in North America, notable for the male's streaked, wine-red gorget that splays outward like tiny rays rather than forming a solid patch.
hummingbird
Bee Hummingbird
The smallest bird species on Earth, native only to Cuba, with breeding males showing a fiery, iridescent pink-red head and throat over a tiny bluish-green body.
hummingbird
Common Swift
The Common Swift is an almost entirely aerial bird with long, scythe-like flight feathers and uniformly sooty-brown plumage, built for a life spent on the wing far more than any songbird.
other
Ring-necked Pheasant
A large, long-tailed gamebird whose males carry some of the most vividly iridescent body feathers and dramatically elongated tail feathers of any bird found in open countryside.
gamebird
Indian Peafowl
One of the most recognizable birds in the world, with males displaying an iridescent blue neck and an immense fanning train of elongated feathers marked with large eyespots.
gamebird
Yellow Wagtail
The Yellow Wagtail is a slender summer-visiting songbird whose plumage is yellow from throat to undertail, set against an olive-green back, distinguishing its feathers from the more grey-toned wagtails.
songbird