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.
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
Common Green Magpie
A vividly green forest corvid with a bold black mask and chestnut wing patch, whose color can fade toward blue in old feathers.
corvid
Hooded Crow
The grey-and-black counterpart of the Carrion Crow, easily identified by pale ash-grey body feathers contrasting sharply with a black head, wings, and tail.
corvid
Chipping Sparrow
The Chipping Sparrow is a small, neat sparrow recognized in breeding plumage by its bright rufous crown feathers over a clean, unstreaked gray breast.
songbird
Scaled Dove
A small South American dove whose breast and neck feathers carry dark, crescent-shaped edges that overlap like fish scales.
dove pigeon
Sand Martin
The Sand Martin is the smallest European swallow-relative, with plain sandy-brown upperpart feathers, white underparts, and a distinctive brown breast band.
songbird
Tacazze Sunbird
A large highland sunbird of East Africa with elongated central tail feathers and male plumage that gleams deep purple and green in good light.
songbird
Black-winged Stilt
A strikingly patterned wader whose feathers form a sharp black-and-white contrast, set off by improbably long pink-red legs.
shorebird
Eurasian Magpie
A boldly pied corvid whose black feathers flash iridescent blue-green and purple in the light, with an unmistakably long, wedge-shaped tail.
corvid
Downy Woodpecker
The smallest North American woodpecker, its black-and-white checkered feathers and short bill make it a common and easily identified backyard bird.
woodpecker
Grey-crowned Rosy-Finch
A North American alpine finch with a grey patch on the back of the head and rosy-pink feathering on the wings and belly against an otherwise brown body.
songbird
Golden-tailed Woodpecker
An African woodpecker with bold spotting on the underparts rather than barring, plus a golden tint to the tail feathers that gives the species its name.
woodpecker
Black-crested Titmouse
The Black-crested Titmouse is a Texas relative of the Tufted Titmouse, distinguished chiefly by its solid black, rather than gray, crest feathers.
songbird
Andean Siskin
A modestly plumaged high-Andean finch with streaky brown-olive feathering, adapted to cold paramo grasslands rather than showy display.
songbird
Tawny Frogmouth
A nocturnal Australian bird with mottled grey-brown feathers that mimic tree bark, allowing it to remain nearly invisible while perched motionless during the day.
other
Sun Conure
A vividly colored conure of northeastern South America, its golden-yellow and orange plumage set off by green-tipped wings and blue flight feathers.
parrot
Stygian Owl
The Stygian Owl is a dark, dramatically plumaged owl of Latin America and the Caribbean, named for its blackish-brown feathers and prominent, closely-set ear tufts.
owl
Nanday Conure
A green South American conure easily told by its solid black head, or hood, along with a small blue patch on the breast and red-feathered thighs.
parrot
Lined Forest Falcon
A small, shy Amazonian forest-falcon closely resembling the Barred Forest Falcon but with much finer, more closely-spaced barring on its underside feathers.
raptor
Ruddy Shelduck
A warm orange-cinnamon duck with a paler, buffy head, solid black flight feathers, and a bright white patch on the upperwing bordered by a glossy green speculum.
waterfowl
Great Sapphirewing
One of the largest hummingbirds, the Great Sapphirewing shows deep green body plumage set off by brilliant sapphire-blue wing feathers visible in flight.
hummingbird
Chimney Swift
A cigar-shaped aerial bird with uniformly sooty gray-brown plumage and stiff, spine-tipped tail feathers used to brace against vertical surfaces.
other
Barn Owl
An elegant, heart-faced owl whose golden, finely speckled upperparts and ghostly pale underside make its feathers instantly distinctive among owls.
owl
Barn Swallow
The classic long-tailed swallow of barns and bridges, with glossy steel-blue upperparts, a rusty throat, and elongated outer tail feathers tipped with white spots.
songbird