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.
Diamond Dove
One of the smallest doves in the world, a soft gray-brown Australian desert species with tiny white-spotted wings and a bright red ring around the eye.
dove pigeon
Australian Hobby
The Australian Hobby is a small, fast, dark-headed falcon resembling a miniature Peregrine, with slate-grey upperparts and rufous-orange underparts, common across open woodland and towns.
raptor
Shikra
A small, agile hawk of Africa and Asia resembling a miniature goshawk, identified by blue-gray upperparts and finely rufous-barred underparts.
raptor
Lesser Scaup
The Lesser Scaup is a widespread diving duck with a peaked crown and subtle purple gloss on the male's head, most often found on inland lakes and reservoirs during migration and winter.
waterfowl
Green Bee-eater
A small, brilliantly green bee-eater found from Africa to South Asia, with a thin black eye stripe and a fine pin-like extension to its central tail feathers.
other
Kakapo
A large, flightless, nocturnal parrot with soft, moss-green plumage patterned for camouflage on the forest floor.
parrot
Laughing Dove
A small, warm pinkish-cinnamon dove named for its bubbling, laugh-like coo, with a distinctive speckled black patch across the upper breast.
dove pigeon
Western Reef Heron
A coastal heron of Africa and Asia closely related to the Little Egret, occurring in both dark and white color forms.
wading bird
Torresian Crow
A widespread crow of northern Australia and New Guinea, larger and more heavily built than the closely related Little Crow.
corvid
Bornean Peacock-pheasant
A little-known peacock-pheasant endemic to Borneo's lowland rainforest, patterned with rows of glossy blue-green eyespots across a rich chestnut-brown plumage.
gamebird
Glaucous-winged Gull
A common gull of the North Pacific coast, the Glaucous-winged Gull shows pale gray wingtip feathers with little or no black, differing subtly from most other large gulls, and frequently hybridizes with related species.
seabird
Palm Tanager
A close relative of the Blue-gray Tanager, the Palm Tanager shows a more subdued olive-gray to greenish tone overall with darker wings and little of the brighter blue accent of its cousin.
songbird
Morepork
New Zealand's small native owl, named for its call and known to Maori as ruru, with dark brown feathers mottled with pale buff spotting and streaked underparts.
owl
Collared Forest Falcon
A large, owl-faced Neotropical forest raptor with short rounded wings and a long barred tail, known for a dark neck collar and loud calls echoing through the forest at dawn and dusk.
raptor
Eurasian Woodcock
The larger Eurasian relative of the American Woodcock, sharing the same dead-leaf camouflage pattern and forest-floor lifestyle, but with a grayer overall tone and a distinctive slow, owl-like display flight known as roding.
shorebird
Southern Boobook
Australia's most familiar and widespread owl, named for its distinctive 'boo-book' call, with dark brown feathers boldly spotted white above and streaked buff below.
owl
Short-toed Snake Eagle
The Short-toed Snake Eagle is a pale-bellied Eurasian eagle with brown upperparts, a mottled brown breast, finely barred flight and tail feathers, and a large owl-like head adapted for scanning the ground for reptile prey.
raptor
Northern Harrier
The Northern Harrier, sometimes called the Marsh Hawk, is a slim, long-winged raptor of open grassland and marsh, known for its low, tilting flight, a distinctive white rump patch in all plumages, and an owl-like facial disc that helps it hear prey in the grass.
raptor
Brown Kiwi
A flightless, nocturnal New Zealand bird with shaggy, hair-like feathers and a long probing bill used to find invertebrates in leaf litter.
other
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
Worm-eating Warbler
A plain buffy-olive warbler of steep, leaf-littered forest slopes, marked by bold black stripes across the crown and through the eye and a notably long, spike-like bill.
songbird
Eastern Towhee
A large, ground-dwelling sparrow relative with bold black (or brown), white, and rufous plumage, often first noticed scratching noisily through leaf litter in dense thickets.
songbird
Sword-billed Hummingbird
A remarkable Andean hummingbird whose straight bill is longer than its own body, an adaptation for feeding on especially long, tubular flowers.
hummingbird
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