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.
Purple Martin
The largest North American swallow, with males showing an all-over glossy blue-black sheen and females a duller gray-brown, pale-bellied pattern.
songbird
California Thrasher
The largest North American thrasher, a dark chocolate-brown bird of California chaparral with a long, strongly curved bill adapted for digging through leaf litter.
songbird
Wild Turkey
A large North American gamebird with iridescent bronze-green body feathers, a broad fan-shaped tail banded in dark brown and buff, and a bare, colorful head.
gamebird
Lazuli Bunting
A small western North American bunting, the male Lazuli Bunting pairs a turquoise-blue head and back with a warm orange breast band and clean white belly.
songbird
Lark Bunting
A North American prairie songbird whose breeding males turn nearly all black with a bold white wing patch, a striking contrast to the streaky brown females.
songbird
Mountain Quail
The largest quail native to North America, instantly recognized by the single thin, straight plume that projects from its crown.
gamebird
Mountain Plover
An unusual, upland-dwelling North American plover of dry short-grass prairie, notably lacking the dark breast band typical of most of its shorebird relatives.
shorebird
Fox Sparrow
A large, richly colored sparrow whose reddish tail and heavily spotted breast make its feathers among the most distinctive of any North American sparrow.
songbird
Ring-billed Gull
A common, adaptable medium-sized gull of North America named for the black band around its bill, the Ring-billed Gull shows pale gray back feathers and yellow legs, thriving in habitats from lakeshores to parking lots.
seabird
Swallow-tailed Kite
A graceful, boldly two-toned raptor with a deeply forked tail, whose sharp black-and-white feathers are unlike almost any other North American bird of prey.
raptor
Mountain Bluebird
A slender, sky-blue songbird of western North American high country, the male appearing almost entirely blue with no rusty breast patch, unlike its bluebird relatives.
songbird
Blue Grosbeak
A stocky North American bunting relative, the Blue Grosbeak shows deep blue plumage and chestnut wing bars in males, while females wear a warm, understated brown.
songbird
Western Tanager
A colorful western North American forest songbird, the breeding male Western Tanager combines a yellow body and black wings with a striking orange-red wash across the head.
songbird
Chestnut-backed Chickadee
The Chestnut-backed Chickadee is a Pacific coastal chickadee whose warm chestnut-brown back and flank feathers set it apart from every other North American chickadee.
songbird
Trumpeter Swan
The heaviest native North American bird and largest swan, entirely white with a solid black bill, sometimes showing a rust-stained head from iron-rich feeding grounds.
waterfowl
Forster's Tern
A North American marsh tern with notably pale, frosty primaries and a distinctive nonbreeding head pattern featuring a dark patch through the eye rather than a full black cap.
seabird
Barred Owl
A large, round-headed owl of eastern North American forests, known for its dark eyes and the distinctive combination of horizontal chest barring and vertical belly streaking on its plumage.
owl
Bonaparte's Gull
A dainty, tern-like gull of the North American boreal forest, notable as one of the few gulls that nests in trees, and identifiable by its crisp black hood and bright white wing wedge.
seabird
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
Summer Tanager
Unlike its scarlet cousin, the male Summer Tanager is rosy-red from head to tail with no contrasting black wings, a year-round trait unique among North American tanagers.
songbird
Ferruginous Hawk
The Ferruginous Hawk is the largest North American buteo, with rich rufous ('ferruginous') back and leg feathers, a pale head and underparts, and a whitish tail, adapted to hunting over open, arid grassland.
raptor
Great Blue Heron
The largest heron in North America, a slow-stalking hunter of shallow water with a slate-blue body and a dagger-like yellow bill.
wading bird
Orchard Oriole
The smallest North American oriole, with adult males showing a rich chestnut body against a black hood and back, while females and young males wear a more subdued olive-yellow plumage.
songbird
Sandhill Crane
A tall North American crane, gray overall but often stained rusty-brown from preening with iron-rich mud, famous for its massive migratory staging flocks and rolling bugle call.
wading bird