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.
Striolated Bunting
A small, finely streaked bunting of arid rocky country across North Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia.
songbird
Cape Bunting
A southern African bunting with a black-and-white striped face and a warm chestnut wing panel, favoring rocky, hilly terrain.
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
Louisiana Waterthrush
A large, stream-loving warbler with an unmarked white throat and warm buffy flanks, closely tied to clear, rocky, fast-moving woodland streams.
songbird
Fan-tailed Raven
A stocky, short-tailed raven of desert and rocky habitats, easily recognized in flight by its notably short, broad, fan-shaped tail.
corvid
Black Guillemot
A small, sooty-black auk of northern rocky coasts, easily told by a bold white oval patch on each wing and bright red legs and feet.
seabird
Ground Woodpecker
A highly unusual, almost entirely terrestrial woodpecker of southern African rocky grassland, with pink-flushed underparts and none of the tree-climbing habits of its relatives.
woodpecker
Brush Bronzewing
A ground-loving Australian pigeon named for the shimmering bronze, green, and purple spots that gleam across its folded wings.
dove pigeon
Bobolink
A grassland songbird famous for the breeding male's striking 'backward tuxedo' pattern of black underparts and pale back, and for its exceptionally long migration to South America.
songbird
Giant Kingfisher
Africa's largest kingfisher, a bulky black-and-white bird with a shaggy crest, hunting fish along forested rivers and rocky streams.
other
Giant Cowbird
The largest of the cowbirds, a big-bodied blackbird relative that parasitizes the colonial nests of oropendolas and caciques throughout Central and South America.
songbird
Brown-capped Rosy-Finch
An alpine finch restricted to the southern Rocky Mountains, showing a plain cinnamon-brown cap that lacks the grey crown patch of related rosy-finch species.
songbird
Hume's Owl
Hume's Owl is a pale, desert-adapted tawny owl of the Middle East whose sandy, finely barred feathers blend seamlessly with rock and canyon walls.
owl
Snow Partridge
A high-alpine Himalayan partridge whose entire plumage is finely barred in gray, black, white, and chestnut, blending seamlessly into rocky, snow-patched terrain.
gamebird
Spotted Eagle-Owl
A common, adaptable eagle-owl of African savanna and rocky country, mottled grayish-brown with bold dark spotting, often seen roosting near human settlements.
owl
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
Grey Francolin
A ground-dwelling gamebird with finely barred grey-brown plumage, well camouflaged in dry scrub and farmland across South Asia.
gamebird
Cape Eagle-Owl
The Cape Eagle-Owl is a large, powerfully built African owl of rocky hill country, with tawny-buff plumage heavily marked with dark blotches and barring, and prominent ear tufts.
owl
Bateleur
A striking African eagle relative known for its extremely short tail and rocking, tightrope-walker flight style, with black body plumage, a chestnut back, and pale flight feathers.
raptor
Dodo
A large, flightless pigeon relative once native to Mauritius, known for its stout grey-brown body, oversized hooked bill, and small, curled tuft of tail feathers; it has been extinct since the late 1600s.
dove pigeon
Honey Buzzard
The Honey Buzzard is a highly variable Eurasian raptor specialized in raiding wasp and bee nests, recognizable by its small, pigeon-like head, dense scale-like facial feathers for protection, and boldly banded tail.
raptor
Surfbird
A stocky, rock-loving shorebird that breeds on remote Alaskan mountain tundra and winters almost entirely along rocky Pacific coastlines, easily told by its bold black tail band and heavily marked breeding underparts.
shorebird
Caique
A small, boldly patterned Amazonian parrot with an orange-yellow head, white belly, and green wings.
parrot
Sulphur-crested Cockatoo
A large all-white cockatoo with a tall sulphur-yellow crest that fans forward when the bird is alert or excited.
parrot