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.
Blue Grosbeak
A stocky North American bunting relative, the Blue Grosbeak shows deep blue plumage and chestnut wing bars in males, while females wear a warm, understated brown.
songbird
Red-throated Caracara
A loud, glossy black rainforest raptor of the Amazon and Central America, with a bare red throat and face and a striking white belly patch, often heard before it is seen.
raptor
Streak-backed Oriole
A vividly orange oriole of Mexican and Central American dry forests, distinguished by black streaking across its back, and an occasional rare visitor to the southwestern United States.
songbird
Mountain Plover
An unusual, upland-dwelling North American plover of dry short-grass prairie, notably lacking the dark breast band typical of most of its shorebird relatives.
shorebird
Picui Ground Dove
A small, pale ground dove of open southern South American country, marked by neat blackish spots on its wing coverts and flashes of blue-grey in flight.
dove pigeon
Spot-winged Falconet
A small, distinctive South American falcon of arid scrub and Chaco woodland, showing white-spotted wings against brown-grey upperparts and streaked buffy underparts.
raptor
Fox Sparrow
A large, richly colored sparrow whose reddish tail and heavily spotted breast make its feathers among the most distinctive of any North American sparrow.
songbird
Whooping Crane
The tallest bird in North America, an endangered white crane with black wingtips visible in flight and a bare red crown, best known for its dramatic conservation recovery story.
wading bird
Southern Lapwing
A bold, noisy plover of South American open country, the Southern Lapwing shows iridescent bronze-green wing feathers, a black breast patch, and a distinctive thin head crest.
shorebird
Fiery-throated Hummingbird
A high-elevation Central American hummingbird whose throat flashes a fiery orange-red patch bordered by contrasting blue, set against an overall glittering blue-green body.
hummingbird
Black-necked Stilt
A tall, slender American shorebird in crisp black-and-white plumage, best known for its extremely long, thin pink-red legs that trail well beyond the tail in flight.
shorebird
White-throated Thrush
The White-throated Thrush is a widespread Central and South American forest thrush, identified by its plain olive-brown body and a contrasting white throat marked with dark streaking.
songbird
Whistling Heron
A pale, pastel-toned South American heron named for its whistled call, more often found striding through open grassland than wading in deep water.
wading bird
Western Tanager
A colorful western North American forest songbird, the breeding male Western Tanager combines a yellow body and black wings with a striking orange-red wash across the head.
songbird
Pacific Golden-Plover
A slender, long-legged golden plover breeding on Siberian and Alaskan tundra and wintering widely across Pacific islands and coastal Asia, closely resembling the American Golden-Plover.
shorebird
Green-winged Teal
The North American form of the common teal, and the smallest dabbling duck on the continent, with males showing a chestnut head, a green eye patch, and a bold vertical white stripe on the side.
waterfowl
Chestnut-backed Chickadee
The Chestnut-backed Chickadee is a Pacific coastal chickadee whose warm chestnut-brown back and flank feathers set it apart from every other North American chickadee.
songbird
Red-and-green Macaw
One of the largest macaws, a vivid red parrot of South American forests with a green wing band, blue flight feathers, and a bare white face marked with thin lines of red feathers.
parrot
Bonaparte's Gull
A dainty, tern-like gull of the North American boreal forest, notable as one of the few gulls that nests in trees, and identifiable by its crisp black hood and bright white wing wedge.
seabird
Blue Jay
The Blue Jay is a large, vocal corvid whose bold blue, black-barred, white-tipped wing and tail feathers are among the most instantly recognizable of any North American songbird.
corvid
Yellow-rumped Cacique
A vocal, colonial songbird of South American lowland forests, marked by glossy black plumage set off by a bright yellow rump and wing patch, and pale, ice-blue eyes.
songbird
White-cheeked Pintail
A Caribbean and South American dabbling duck with a sharply demarcated white cheek and throat patch set against a dark crown, and a warm buffy body heavily marked with dark spots.
waterfowl
Trumpeter Swan
The heaviest native North American bird and largest swan, entirely white with a solid black bill, sometimes showing a rust-stained head from iron-rich feeding grounds.
waterfowl
Forster's Tern
A North American marsh tern with notably pale, frosty primaries and a distinctive nonbreeding head pattern featuring a dark patch through the eye rather than a full black cap.
seabird