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.
White-throated Toucan
The White-throated Toucan is one of the largest Amazonian toucans, known for its oversized bicolored bill and bold white throat patch set against jet-black plumage. It moves through the rainforest canopy in noisy family groups, hopping between branches rather than flying long distances.
other
Wood Thrush
A woodland thrush with a warm rufous-brown back brightest on the head, and a boldly spotted white breast that gives it one of the most striking feather patterns among eastern forest songbirds.
songbird
Satyr Tragopan
A vivid crimson Himalayan pheasant whose male is covered in white-centered black-bordered spots and can inflate a strikingly patterned blue throat lappet during display.
gamebird
Yellow-throated Warbler
A gray-backed wood-warbler with a bright yellow throat and bold black-and-white facial pattern, often seen creeping along branches in pine and cypress woodland.
songbird
Bridled Titmouse
The Bridled Titmouse is a small, crested songbird distinguished by its striking black-and-white facial pattern resembling a bridle, found in oak and pine-oak canyons of the borderlands.
songbird
Demoiselle Crane
The smallest of the world's cranes, a blue-grey bird with a black head and breast set off by long, drooping white ear-tuft plumes trailing behind the eyes.
wading bird
Whooping Crane
The tallest bird in North America, a white crane with black wingtips visible in flight and a bare red crown, best known for its dramatic conservation recovery story.
wading bird
Australian White Ibis
A common Australian ibis with white body plumage and a bare black head and neck, now a familiar sight scavenging in city parks and rubbish bins as well as its native wetland habitats.
wading bird
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
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
Northern Wheatear
The Northern Wheatear is an open-country songbird best known for its bold white rump and black-and-white tail pattern, flashed conspicuously in flight above blue-grey or buff-brown body plumage.
songbird
Wood Stork
A large white stork with sharply contrasting black flight feathers and tail, and a bare, dark gray-black head and neck rather than feathered skin.
wading bird
White-crowned Sparrow
The White-crowned Sparrow is a clean, handsome sparrow with a bold black-and-white striped crown set above a plain, unstreaked gray face and breast.
songbird
Rustic Bunting
The Rustic Bunting is a boreal-forest bunting with breeding males showing a bold black-and-white head pattern set against rufous-streaked upperparts and a rufous breast band.
songbird
Black Oystercatcher
A large, entirely dark shorebird of rocky Pacific coastlines, lacking any white in its plumage, unlike its pied relatives elsewhere in the Americas and Old World.
shorebird
American Black Duck
A large, dark dabbling duck of eastern North America that resembles a female Mallard but is much darker overall, with a contrasting pale head and white underwings visible in flight.
waterfowl
Long-tailed Tit
A tiny, round-bodied tit with an extraordinarily long tail exceeding its body length, patterned in black, white, and soft dusky pink, among the most distinctive silhouettes in European woodland.
songbird
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
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
Southern White-faced Owl
A small grey African owl with a strikingly white facial disc rimmed in black and small ear tufts, known for dramatic threat and concealment postures.
owl
Harlequin Duck
The Harlequin Duck is a small, boldly patterned sea duck whose male combines slate-blue plumage with crisp white crescents, spots, and stripes outlined in black, resembling a painted harlequin costume.
waterfowl
White-throated Caracara
A southern Andean raptor closely related to the Mountain Caracara, distinguished by a white throat patch separated from its white belly by a solid black chest band.
raptor
Grey Heron
A tall, still-hunting wading bird whose pale grey body plumage, black head plumes, and dark flight feathers make it one of the most recognizable large waterbirds in Europe, Asia, and Africa.
wading bird
Egyptian Vulture
The smallest and most lightly built Old World vulture, with creamy-white body feathers, black flight feathers, and a distinctive wedge-shaped tail.
raptor