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.
Tropical Kingbird
A common and widespread tyrant flycatcher recognized by its pale gray head and throat fading into lemon-yellow underparts, paired with a notched, dark tail. It favors open habitats with scattered perches from which it sallies for insects.
songbird
Scaled Dove
A small South American dove whose breast and neck feathers carry dark, crescent-shaped edges that overlap like fish scales.
dove pigeon
Stilt Sandpiper
A long-legged, long-billed sandpiper whose breeding-plumage feathers are boldly barred across the underparts, giving it a strikingly different look from the plain grays of its winter attire.
shorebird
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 pigeonInca 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
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
Booted Racket-tail
A tiny Andean hummingbird best known for its puffy white leg feathers and, in males, a pair of long bare tail shafts ending in small dark paddle-shaped tips.
hummingbird
Helmeted Hornbill
The Helmeted Hornbill is a large, distinctive Southeast Asian rainforest bird best known for its solid casque and greatly elongated central tail feathers, which extend far beyond the rest of the tail. Its dark body plumage contrasts with white leg feathers and a long, banded tail.
other
Willow Warbler
A tiny, long-distance migrant warbler nearly identical to the Chiffchaff, best separated at the feather level by slightly yellower tones and pale pinkish (rather than dark) legs.
songbird
Rock Pigeon
A stocky, familiar city bird whose feather color is famously variable, though wild-type individuals retain a blue-gray body with two dark wingbars and an iridescent green-purple neck.
dove pigeon
Laughing Falcon
A distinctive Neotropical falcon named for its loud, laughing call, with a bold dark facial mask set against a pale cream head that makes its feathers easy to recognize.
raptor
Purple Sandpiper
A stocky, dark-plumaged sandpiper of wave-battered rocky coastlines, its feathers showing a subtle purplish gloss on slaty-gray upperparts unlike any other North Atlantic shorebird.
shorebird
Tawny Owl
A stocky woodland owl whose bark-patterned, silent-edged feathers make it one of the most cryptically camouflaged birds in the forest.
owl
Crested Pigeon
A common Australian pigeon topped with a slender, upright black crest and marked by bold iridescent green-and-purple patches across the folded wing.
dove pigeon
Indian Robin
A small, confiding songbird of dry open country in South Asia, glossy black or brown with a chestnut patch under the tail that flashes as it forages on the ground.
songbird
Canyon Towhee
The Canyon Towhee is a plain, dusty-brown ground bird of southwestern deserts and canyons, distinguished by a rufous crown and a dark central breast spot.
songbird
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
Arizona Woodpecker
A woodpecker of southwestern oak canyons notable for its plain brown back, unlike the black-and-white barred pattern of most related species.
woodpecker
Laughing Dove
A small, warm pinkish-cinnamon dove named for its bubbling, laugh-like coo, with a distinctive speckled black patch across the upper breast.
dove pigeon
Royal Spoonbill
A white spoonbill of Australasia known for the long, trailing white crest plumes that breeding adults grow from the back of the head.
wading bird
Common Scoter
The Common Scoter is the Eurasian counterpart of the Black Scoter, a sea duck whose breeding male is entirely black apart from a yellow-orange patch along the ridge of the bill.
waterfowl
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.
raptor
Japanese Quail
A close relative of the Common Quail from East Asia, cloaked in the same streaky brown camouflage but with a warmer rufous wash to the breast.
gamebird
Least Sandpiper
The smallest sandpiper in the world, distinguished from other tiny peeps by its yellow-green legs and finely mottled brown upperparts.
shorebird