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.
Plumbeous Vireo
The Plumbeous Vireo is a uniformly gray vireo of western pine and pinyon-juniper woodlands, lacking the olive-green tones seen in its eastern relative.
songbird
Sage Thrasher
The smallest and most compact North American thrasher, a streaky gray-brown bird of sagebrush country with a shorter, straighter bill than its relatives.
songbird
Cory's Shearwater
A large, pale brownish-gray shearwater with a yellowish bill, known for its slow, languid flight style compared to other shearwaters of similar size.
seabird
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
Cassin's Vireo
Cassin's Vireo is a western woodland vireo that sits between its close relatives in coloring, showing a muted, intermediate blend of gray and olive tones.
songbird
Canada Warbler
A slate-blue-gray warbler with bright yellow underparts crossed by a distinctive necklace of black streaks, along with a bold yellow spectacle around the eye.
songbird
Spotted Redshank
A striking wader that turns almost entirely sooty black with fine white spots in breeding plumage, transforming to pale gray in winter.
shorebird
Carolina Chickadee
The Carolina Chickadee is the southeastern counterpart to the Black-capped Chickadee, producing nearly identical tiny black-capped, gray-backed feathers.
songbird
Ash-throated Flycatcher
A pale desert-country flycatcher with an ashy-gray throat, soft yellow belly wash, and a rufous tail that flashes when it flies.
songbird
Purple Martin
The largest North American swallow, with males showing an all-over glossy blue-black sheen and females a duller gray-brown, pale-bellied pattern.
songbird
Northern Mockingbird
A slim gray songbird famous for its vocal mimicry, identifiable by the bold white patches on its wings and the white outer edges of its long tail.
songbird
European Pied Flycatcher
A small Old World flycatcher in which breeding males show bold black-and-white plumage, while females and nonbreeding males are softer brownish-gray.
songbird
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
Barnacle Goose
A small, sharply patterned goose with a bold black-and-white face and finely barred silver-gray flanks, breeding on Arctic cliffs and wintering on coastal grassland.
waterfowl
Chilean Flicker
A ground-foraging flicker of Chile and Argentina, patterned in muted grays and browns to match the temperate woodland-steppe it inhabits.
woodpecker
White-winged Dove
A brown-gray desert dove readily identified by a bold white stripe along the edge of the folded wing, visible both perched and in flight.
dove pigeon
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
Gila Woodpecker
A common Sonoran Desert woodpecker with a plain gray-tan head and body set off by a boldly barred black-and-white back and wings.
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
Bicknell's Thrush
A rare, high-elevation thrush closely resembling the Gray-cheeked Thrush, separated mainly by subtle tail color, bill pattern, and habitat.
songbird
American Tree Sparrow
A hardy winter sparrow of snowy fields, recognizable by its rufous cap and the single dark spot centered on an otherwise plain gray breast.
songbird
Verreaux's Eagle-Owl
Africa's largest owl, a pale gray giant of savanna and riverine woodland, instantly recognizable in life by its bare pink eyelids, with correspondingly oversized, finely patterned feathers.
owl
Rock Bunting
The Rock Bunting is a bunting of dry, rocky hillsides across southern Europe and Asia, identified by its gray head with bold black stripes and a chestnut-streaked back.
songbird
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