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.
Crested Guan
A large, dark guan of tropical American forests, its dusky brown plumage marked with pale-edged feathers that create a scaled pattern on the underparts and wings. A bright red throat wattle and small crest add distinctive accents.
gamebird
Great Black-backed Gull
The world's largest gull, the Great Black-backed Gull shows strikingly dark slate-black mantle feathers contrasting with a pure white head and body, and is a powerful predator as well as scavenger along North Atlantic coasts.
seabird
Grass Owl
A ground-nesting barn-owl relative of tall grasslands from Asia to Australia, with long slender legs and golden-buff to dark brown feathers finely spotted, adapted to a life spent low over open grass.
owl
Pine Grosbeak
A large, tame northern finch with a stout bill, rosy-pink males and grey-and-yellow females, and bold white wing bars visible in flight.
songbird
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
Eurasian Bullfinch
A stocky, short-billed finch with a black cap, grey back, and a rosy-pink breast in males, easily told by its bright white rump patch in flight.
songbird
Grey Fantail
A small, restless Australian songbird, the Grey Fantail flits through woodland foliage with its broad tail fanned wide, showing gray upperparts and warm buff underparts.
songbirdCommon Bullfinch
A stocky, shy woodland finch with males showing rosy-pink underparts against a blue-grey back and black cap, and both sexes sharing a bold white rump patch that flashes distinctively in flight.
songbird
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
Common Linnet
An open-country finch with a warm brown body overall, breeding males adding a crimson forehead and breast patch atop a grey head and chestnut back, with pale wing and tail panels visible in flight.
songbird
Montagu's Harrier
Montagu's Harrier is the slimmest and most lightly built of the Eurasian harriers, males pale grey with a distinctive black wing-bar, and females and juveniles rufous-brown, all adapted to graceful, buoyant flight over open farmland and steppe.
raptor
Gilded Flicker
A desert flicker of the Southwest that nests almost exclusively in saguaro cacti and flashes golden-yellow underwings in flight.
woodpecker
Cassin's Sparrow
A plain grassland sparrow best known for its distinctive skylarking display flight and musical, trilling song.
songbird
Andean Siskin
A modestly plumaged high-Andean finch with streaky brown-olive feathering, adapted to cold paramo grasslands rather than showy display.
songbird
European Roller
A vividly blue bird of open country, named for its acrobatic tumbling display flights during the breeding season.
other
Yellow-breasted Greenfinch
A Himalayan finch with bright yellow underparts, a greyish head, and yellow flashes in the wings and tail visible in flight.
songbird
Squacco Heron
A small, unassuming heron that appears dull buff-brown at rest but reveals bright white wings the moment it takes flight.
wading bird
Shining Sunbeam
A warm cinnamon-toned Andean hummingbird whose wings and back flash with a distinctive coppery-bronze iridescence in flight or sunlight.
hummingbird
Plain Pigeon
A large, plainly colored Caribbean pigeon that reveals a white wing patch in flight, a species of conservation concern on several islands.
dove pigeon
European Bee-eater
A dazzlingly colorful, streamlined bird combining chestnut, gold, and turquoise plumage, often seen hawking insects in graceful flight.
other
Common Redshank
A vocal, alert wader with bright orange-red legs and a bold white trailing edge to the wing that flashes conspicuously in flight.
shorebird
White-throated Swift
A boldly patterned black-and-white swift of western cliffs and canyons, easily recognized by its striking contrast and remarkably fast, direct flight.
other
Berylline Hummingbird
A coppery-green montane hummingbird whose folded wings show a flash of rufous not typically visible in similar species until it takes flight.
hummingbird
White-backed Vulture
A widespread African savanna vulture, mostly brown overall but showing a distinctive whitish patch on the lower back that is especially visible in flight.
raptor