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.
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
Flammulated Owl
A tiny, highly secretive migratory owl of western pine forests, camouflaged to match bark with a fine mottled gray-and-rufous pattern, and unusual among small owls for its dark eyes.
owl
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
Heermann's Gull
A distinctively dark-bodied Pacific coast gull with a bright red bill, most easily recognized outside the nesting season by its uniform sooty-gray plumage contrasting with a white head.
seabird
Gyrfalcon
The largest falcon in the world, a powerful hunter of the high Arctic occurring in white, gray, and dark plumage morphs, all sharing broader wings and greater bulk than any other falcon.
raptor
Golden-winged Warbler
A striking blue-gray warbler with a bright yellow crown and wing patch, set off by a bold black throat and facial mask in adult males, known for hybridizing with the Blue-winged Warbler.
songbird
Bank Myna
A bluish-gray South Asian myna with warm brick-colored underparts and a distinctive patch of bare orange-red skin behind the eye, often found nesting in burrows along riverbanks.
songbird
Glaucous-winged Gull
A common gull of the North Pacific coast, the Glaucous-winged Gull shows pale gray wingtip feathers with little or no black, differing subtly from most other large gulls, and frequently hybridizes with related species.
seabird
Sooty Owl
A dark, striking barn-owl relative of Australian and New Guinean rainforest, its sooty gray-black feathers finely speckled with silvery white, unlike any other owl in its range.
owl
Western Gull
A heavily built, dark-backed gull of the Pacific coast, the Western Gull shows dark slate-gray mantle feathers and a notably powerful, thick bill, rarely wandering far from saltwater.
seabird
Terek Sandpiper
A distinctive sandpiper with a long, strongly upturned bill and short orange-yellow legs, the Terek Sandpiper shows plain pale gray-brown feathers with a dark scapular streak and an animated feeding style.
shorebird
Blue-winged Warbler
A bright yellow-headed warbler with blue-gray wings marked by two white wing bars and a thin black line through the eye, closely related to and often hybridizing with the Golden-winged Warbler.
songbird
Wilson's Phalarope
A slim, needle-billed shorebird of prairie wetlands, Wilson's Phalarope shows a striking chestnut neck stripe in breeding plumage and plain gray-and-white feathers otherwise, unusual among birds for its reversed sexual dichromatism.
shorebird
Herring Gull
A familiar large gull of the Old World, the Herring Gull shows pale gray mantle feathers, black-and-white patterned wingtips, and pink legs, taking several years to reach its fully patterned adult plumage.
seabird
Lesser Black-backed Gull
A medium-large gull of European waters with dark slate-gray to blackish mantle feathers and yellow legs, the Lesser Black-backed Gull has expanded its range widely and increasingly turns up well inland.
seabird
Tropical Parula
A tiny blue-gray and yellow warbler of the far southern U.S. and Latin America, easily told from its northern cousin by its unbroken olive back patch and lack of white eye crescents.
songbird
Peregrine Falcon
A powerful, fast-flying falcon found on nearly every continent, famous for high-speed hunting stoops and identified by its slate-gray back, bold black facial 'moustache,' and finely barred underparts.
raptor
Brown-headed Cowbird
A small blackbird best known for laying its eggs in other birds' nests, with males showing a sharply contrasting brown head against a glossy black body and females entirely plain gray-brown.
songbird
Black Redstart
The Black Redstart is a small songbird easily identified by its constantly quivering, bright rufous-orange tail set against sooty gray or brown body plumage, often seen on rocky ledges and buildings.
songbird
Eurasian Woodcock
The larger Eurasian relative of the American Woodcock, sharing the same dead-leaf camouflage pattern and forest-floor lifestyle, but with a grayer overall tone and a distinctive slow, owl-like display flight known as roding.
shorebird
Noisy Miner
A vocal, highly social Australian honeyeater, the Noisy Miner has gray body plumage, a black cap, and a bright yellow bill and bare eye-patch, and is well known for its bold group defense of territory.
songbird
Bushtit
A tiny, drab, highly social western songbird whose plain gray-brown feathers and long slender tail relative to its round body make it easy to identify despite its lack of bold markings.
songbird
Iceland Gull
A pale, gentle-faced gull of the North Atlantic Arctic, the Iceland Gull shows pale gray back feathers and white to very pale wingtips, smaller and more delicately built than the similar Glaucous Gull.
seabird
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