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 Falconet
A strikingly pied falconet with clean black-and-white plumage and no rufous coloring at all, found across southern China and northern Southeast Asia.
raptor
Palm Warbler
A ground-foraging wood-warbler with a rufous cap in breeding plumage and constant tail-bobbing, breeding in northern bogs and wintering in the southeastern US.
songbird
Red-throated Wryneck
The African counterpart to the Eurasian Wryneck, distinguished by its warm rufous throat patch set against the same cryptic, bark-like plumage.
woodpecker
Red-backed Shrike
A small Eurasian shrike with strongly different male and female plumages, the male showing a gray head, chestnut back, and black bandit mask.
songbird
Torresian Crow
A widespread crow of northern Australia and New Guinea, larger and more heavily built than the closely related Little Crow.
corvid
Black Woodpecker
The largest woodpecker across most of Europe and northern Asia, entirely black except for a red crown patch and a pale bill.
woodpecker
Hoary Redpoll
A pale, frosty-looking northern finch closely related to the Common Redpoll, breeding at even higher latitudes across the Arctic.
songbird
Pyrrhuloxia
A desert relative of the Northern Cardinal, the Pyrrhuloxia is soft gray overall with splashes of red on the crest, face, and underparts, plus a distinctive stubby yellow bill.
songbird
Philadelphia Vireo
The Philadelphia Vireo is a small, plain-plumaged vireo of northern woodlands, often confused with the Warbling Vireo and Tennessee Warbler due to its subtle coloring.
songbird
American Three-toed Woodpecker
The North American counterpart of the Eurasian Three-toed Woodpecker, a boreal conifer specialist with a yellow-capped male and barred black-and-white flanks.
woodpecker
Little Gull
The smallest gull in the world, a delicate Eurasian species with rounded wings, a buoyant tern-like flight, and strikingly dark underwings that flash as it wheels over the water.
seabird
Little Bunting
The Little Bunting is a small, compact Eurasian bunting with a rufous-chestnut face bordered by dark stripes, breeding across the boreal taiga and wintering in southern Asia.
songbird
Common Ringed Plover
The Eurasian counterpart to the Semipalmated Plover, a small brown-and-white plover with a single black breast band, breeding across the Arctic and temperate coasts of the Old World.
shorebird
Olive-backed Sunbird
A widespread and adaptable sunbird found from South Asia to northern Australia, with olive-green upperparts, yellow underparts, and a glittering blue-black throat in breeding males.
songbird
Carib Grackle
A small, glossy grackle common around towns and farmland in the southern Caribbean and northern South America, recognized by its keel-shaped tail and noisy flocking habits.
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
Chestnut-fronted Macaw
A small green macaw with a brown forehead patch and a red-and-green shoulder patch, found in lowland forests across northern South America.
parrot
Ring Ouzel
A blackbird relative of upland Europe, told from the Eurasian Blackbird by its bold white crescent across the breast and pale-scaled wing feathers.
songbird
Oriental Magpie
An East Asian magpie closely related to the Eurasian Magpie, recognized by its glossy black-and-white pattern and a somewhat shorter tail than its western relatives.
corvid
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
Whooper Swan
A large Eurasian swan, entirely white with a straighter neck carriage than Mute Swan, known for its loud bugling call given in flight and on the water.
waterfowl
Iberian Green Woodpecker
The Iberian Peninsula's counterpart to the Eurasian Green Woodpecker, recently recognized as its own species, sharing the same green plumage and strongly ground-feeding habits.
woodpecker
Yellow-breasted Bunting
The Yellow-breasted Bunting is a strikingly colored Eurasian songbird, once abundant but now critically endangered due to unsustainable historical trapping pressure along its migratory routes.
songbird
Ivory Gull
A pure white, high Arctic gull closely tied to pack ice, whose all-white adult plumage and short black legs make it unmistakable among northern seabirds.
seabird