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.
Pied Wagtail
The Pied Wagtail is a slender black-and-white songbird best known for its constantly pumping tail, with crisp black-and-white feathering that gives it a strongly contrasting, checkered appearance.
songbird
Eurasian Skylark
The Eurasian Skylark is a streaky brown ground-dwelling songbird famous for its soaring song-flight, its cryptic feathers offering camouflage in the open fields and grassland it favors.
songbird
Black-headed Bunting
The Black-headed Bunting is a boldly colored songbird of southeastern Europe and southwest Asia, with breeding males showing a solid black head, chestnut back, and vivid yellow underparts.
songbird
Pied Currawong
A large, mostly black Australian songbird, the Pied Currawong is marked by white patches on the wings and tail tip, and a bright yellow eye that stands out against its dark plumage.
songbird
McKay's Bunting
McKay's Bunting is a rare, nearly all-white Arctic songbird breeding only on a few remote Bering Sea islands, closely related to and even whiter than the Snow Bunting.
songbird
Golden-hooded Tanager
A jewel-like songbird of Central American and northern South American forests, the Golden-hooded Tanager combines a black facial mask with a turquoise-and-gold crown and blue-green body.
songbird
Yellow-rumped Cacique
A vocal, colonial songbird of South American lowland forests, marked by glossy black plumage set off by a bright yellow rump and wing patch, and pale, ice-blue eyes.
songbird
Verdin
The Verdin is a tiny desert songbird with a bright yellow head and throat set against gray body plumage, known for building large, conspicuous domed nests in thorny desert shrubs.
songbird
Black-capped Chickadee
The Black-capped Chickadee is a tiny, non-migratory songbird whose soft black-and-white head feathers and plain gray back make it a familiar year-round feeder visitor.
songbird
Montezuma Oropendola
One of the largest New World songbirds, with a rich chestnut body, black head, a long graduated tail tipped in bright yellow, and a distinctive bicolored bill.
songbird
Magpie-lark
A common Australian black-and-white songbird, the Magpie-lark shows bold facial and body markings that differ between males and females, and is frequently seen foraging near water on open ground.
songbird
Cirl Bunting
The Cirl Bunting is a farmland songbird of southern Europe, with males showing a bold black-and-yellow striped face and an olive breast band, now a conservation success story in parts of its range.
songbird
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
Eurasian Wren
A tiny, round, rufous-brown songbird with fine dark barring across its wings and tail, and a characteristic short tail often held cocked upright, belying an unexpectedly loud voice.
songbird
Guianan Cock-of-the-rock
A brilliant orange-yellow songbird of the Guiana Shield's rocky lowland forests, males show the same striking disc-shaped crest as their Andean relative, displayed at communal leks near boulders.
songbird
Grey Butcherbird
A boldly patterned Australian songbird, the Grey Butcherbird shows gray upperparts, a black head marking, and clean white underparts, paired with a strong, hooked bill used to catch and impale prey.
songbird
Superb Fairywren
The Superb Fairywren is a tiny Australian songbird whose breeding males show brilliant iridescent blue plumage, while females and non-breeding males are plain brown with a distinctive cocked tail.
songbird
White-breasted Nuthatch
The White-breasted Nuthatch is a tree-climbing songbird whose clean blue-gray back and pure white face and breast feathers are easy to separate from most other backyard species.
songbird
Superb Lyrebird
One of the largest songbirds, the male Superb Lyrebird carries an extraordinary lyre-shaped tail with lace-like filamentous feathers, displayed during elaborate courtship performances.
songbird
Northern Cardinal
The Northern Cardinal is a stocky, crested songbird whose males shed brilliant all-red feathers while females drop more subdued brown feathers tinged with red on the wings, tail and crest.
songbird
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
Red-headed Bunting
The Red-headed Bunting is a brightly colored central Asian songbird whose breeding males show a chestnut-orange head, greenish back, and yellow underparts, closely related to the Black-headed Bunting.
songbird
Wrentit
The Wrentit is a secretive, chaparral-dwelling songbird known for its long, often upright tail and its bouncing-ball song, more often heard than seen in dense Pacific coast scrub.
songbird
Common Raven
One of the largest songbirds in the world, the Common Raven produces long, heavy, glossy-black feathers with a pronounced iridescent sheen and a distinctive wedge-shaped tail profile.
corvid