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.
Muscovy Duck
A large, heavily built duck; wild birds are glossy black-green with white wing patches, while the widely domesticated and feral forms show highly variable pied black-and-white plumage.
waterfowl
Pharaoh Eagle-Owl
A pale, sandy-toned eagle-owl of North African and Middle Eastern deserts, its feathers finely streaked and vermiculated to blend with rock and sand.
owl
Hume's Owl
Hume's Owl is a pale, desert-adapted tawny owl of the Middle East whose sandy, finely barred feathers blend seamlessly with rock and canyon walls.
owl
Surfbird
A stocky, rock-loving shorebird that breeds on remote Alaskan mountain tundra and winters almost entirely along rocky Pacific coastlines, easily told by its bold black tail band and heavily marked breeding underparts.
shorebird
Brush Bronzewing
A ground-loving Australian pigeon named for the shimmering bronze, green, and purple spots that gleam across its folded wings.
dove pigeon
Bateleur
A striking African eagle relative known for its extremely short tail and rocking, tightrope-walker flight style, with black body plumage, a chestnut back, and pale flight feathers.
raptor
Honey Buzzard
The Honey Buzzard is a highly variable Eurasian raptor specialized in raiding wasp and bee nests, recognizable by its small, pigeon-like head, dense scale-like facial feathers for protection, and boldly banded tail.
raptor
Dodo
A large, flightless pigeon relative once native to Mauritius, known for its stout grey-brown body, oversized hooked bill, and small, curled tuft of tail feathers; it has been extinct since the late 1600s.
dove pigeon
Barrow's Goldeneye
Barrow's Goldeneye is a striking western and northern diving duck distinguished from the similar Common Goldeneye by a crescent-shaped white face patch and bolder black markings on the back.
waterfowl
Striated Caracara
A bold, famously curious raptor of the Falkland Islands and southernmost Patagonia, showing dark brown, pale-streaked plumage well suited to its wind-scoured island habitat.
raptor
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
Cape Crow
A slender, all-black crow of southern and eastern Africa's open grasslands, notable for its long, thin bill.
corvid
Rufous-crowned Sparrow
A plain gray-breasted sparrow of rocky, brushy hillsides, identified by its rufous crown and a bold black malar stripe.
songbird
Wandering Tattler
A uniformly slate-gray shorebird of rocky Pacific coastlines, lacking any wing pattern and constantly bobbing as it forages among tide pools.
shorebird
Chukar
A rocky-hillside partridge known for the sharp black necklace stripe framing its pale throat and the bold black-and-chestnut bars along its flanks.
gamebird
Striolated Bunting
A small, finely streaked bunting of arid rocky country across North Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia.
songbird
Dusky Grouse
A large montane grouse of the interior Rocky Mountains, males dark slate-grey overall with a fanned dark tail and inflatable yellow-orange neck sacs used in display.
gamebird
Cretzschmar's Bunting
Cretzschmar's Bunting is a bunting of dry, rocky Mediterranean and Middle Eastern hillsides, with breeding males showing a blue-gray head, orange throat, and chestnut-streaked back.
songbird
Ground Woodpecker
A highly unusual, almost entirely terrestrial woodpecker of southern African rocky grassland, with pink-flushed underparts and none of the tree-climbing habits of its relatives.
woodpecker
Cape Bunting
A southern African bunting with a black-and-white striped face and a warm chestnut wing panel, favoring rocky, hilly terrain.
songbird
Pacific Reef Heron
A stocky coastal heron of the Indo-Pacific found in two color forms, an all slate-grey dark morph and a pure white light morph, both hunting the wave-washed edges of reefs and rocky shores.
wading bird
Fan-tailed Raven
A stocky, short-tailed raven of desert and rocky habitats, easily recognized in flight by its notably short, broad, fan-shaped tail.
corvid
Giant Kingfisher
Africa's largest kingfisher, a bulky black-and-white bird with a shaggy crest, hunting fish along forested rivers and rocky streams.
other
Louisiana Waterthrush
A large, stream-loving warbler with an unmarked white throat and warm buffy flanks, closely tied to clear, rocky, fast-moving woodland streams.
songbird