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.
Scaly-naped Pigeon
A dark Caribbean forest pigeon whose neck and nape feathers show a striking scaled, iridescent bronze-purple pattern.
dove pigeon
Vasa Parrot
A large, dark, unusually plain-plumaged parrot from Madagascar known for its loose, almost vulture-like feathering.
parrot
Eurasian Pygmy-Owl
Europe's smallest owl, a boreal forest specialist that hunts small birds and rodents largely by day. Its feathers are gray-brown to rufous with crisp white spotting and a narrowly barred tail.
owl
Song Sparrow
The Song Sparrow is a widespread, geographically variable sparrow whose brown-streaked feathers often converge into a distinctive central dark spot on the breast.
songbird
Crested Caracara
A bold, long-legged raptor of southern South America's open grasslands, with a black cap, cream neck, and barred breast that make its feathers unmistakable among ground-foraging birds of prey.
raptor
Cedar Waxwing
A sleek, crested bird best known for the small, waxy red tips on its secondary wing feathers, paired with a soft brown-to-gray body and a bright yellow band across the tail tip.
songbird
Zone-tailed Hawk
A blackish hawk that closely mimics the flight silhouette and dark coloring of the Turkey Vulture, distinguished mainly by its banded tail feathers.
raptor
Common Swift
The Common Swift is an almost entirely aerial bird with long, scythe-like flight feathers and uniformly sooty-brown plumage, built for a life spent on the wing far more than any songbird.
other
Masked Booby
The largest booby species, with a clean white body set off by black flight feathers, a black tail, and a dark facial mask around the bill.
seabird
Great Spotted Woodpecker
The Great Spotted Woodpecker is a striking black-and-white bird with bold white wing patches, a crimson undertail, and stiff, pointed tail feathers adapted for bracing against tree trunks while excavating and drumming.
woodpecker
Scaled Dove
A small South American dove whose breast and neck feathers carry dark, crescent-shaped edges that overlap like fish scales.
dove pigeon
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
Steppe Eagle
The Steppe Eagle is a large, uniformly dark brown Eurasian eagle of open grassland, with long fingered wingtips and fully feathered legs. Its flight feathers show subtle grey barring underneath, and juveniles display a pale band across the underwing.
raptor
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
Metallic Pigeon
The Metallic Pigeon is a dark island pigeon named for the glossy green-and-purple iridescent sheen across its neck feathers, often paired with a contrasting white throat.
dove pigeon
Wilson's Phalarope
A slim, needle-billed shorebird of prairie wetlands, Wilson's Phalarope shows a striking chestnut neck stripe in breeding plumage and plain gray-and-white feathers otherwise, unusual among birds for its reversed sexual dichromatism.
shorebird
Southern Cassowary
A large, flightless rainforest bird, the Southern Cassowary has coarse, hair-like black plumage and a tall bony head casque, with its vivid blue-and-red coloring confined to bare skin rather than feathers.
other
Verreaux's Eagle
Verreaux's Eagle, also called the Black Eagle, is a striking African mountain eagle almost entirely glossy black except for a white back patch and pale flight-feather 'windows.' Its long, broad wings and tail are shaped for soaring along cliffs and escarpments.
raptorInca Dove
A small, pale dove with an overall scaly appearance created by dark-edged feathers, common around towns and arid scrub of the southwestern United States and Mexico.
dove pigeon
House Wren
A plain grayish-brown wren common in yards and gardens across the Americas, identifiable by fine dark barring on its short, often-cocked tail feathers.
songbird
Black Rosy-Finch
A dark, blackish-brown alpine finch of western North America's highest peaks, set off by rosy-pink wing feathering and a grey crown patch.
songbird
Swainson's Hawk
Swainson's Hawk is a long-winged buteo of open grassland and prairie, typically showing a dark breast bib, paler belly, and notably dark flight feathers contrasting against paler underwing coverts, distinct from the broader-winged buteos it shares range with.
raptor
Whimbrel
A widespread curlew with a moderately long, downcurved bill and bold dark stripes on the crown, the Whimbrel shows grayish-brown feathers with fine barring adapted for camouflage on tundra and mudflats alike.
shorebird
Turkey Vulture
A widespread scavenger known for its two-toned wings, silvery flight feathers set against a dark body, and its habit of soaring in a shallow V with a distinctive teetering flight.
raptor