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.
Blue-crowned Motmot
A striking green forest bird with a blue crown outlined in black and a long tail ending in distinctive racket-shaped tips. It perches quietly and is best known for slowly swinging its tail like a pendulum.
other
European Goldfinch
A strikingly patterned finch with a red face, black-and-white head markings, warm buff-brown body, and a vivid golden-yellow wing bar crossing otherwise black wings.
songbird
White Woodpecker
An unusually pale South American woodpecker, mostly white with contrasting black wings and back and a patch of bare yellow facial skin.
woodpecker
Hoffmann's Woodpecker
A common Central American woodpecker with a black-and-white barred back and a small patch of yellow on the nape, adaptable to gardens and open plantations.
woodpecker
Eastern Kingbird
A bold, dark-backed flycatcher with clean white underparts and a distinctive white terminal band across an otherwise black tail.
songbird
Rainbow Bee-eater
Australia's only bee-eater, a multicolored bird combining green, gold, and turquoise plumage with a fine black tail streamer.
other
Pied Wagtail
The Pied Wagtail is a slender black-and-white songbird best known for its constantly pumping tail, with crisp black-and-white feathering that gives it a strongly contrasting, checkered appearance.
songbird
Evening Grosbeak
A large, boldly patterned finch of northern and montane conifer forests, males showing a striking combination of black, bright yellow, and white feathers along with an oversized pale bill.
songbird
Lesser Goldfinch
The Lesser Goldfinch is a diminutive southwestern finch whose males show a black or dark green back sharply contrasting with bright yellow underparts.
songbird
Double-crested Cormorant
A widespread, glossy black waterbird with a bright orange-yellow throat patch, often seen perched with wings spread to dry after diving.
seabird
Citril Finch
A small mountain finch of southwestern Europe with plain greenish-yellow plumage and a grey nape, lacking the black facial markings of related siskins.
songbird
American Three-toed Woodpecker
The North American counterpart of the Eurasian Three-toed Woodpecker, a boreal conifer specialist with a yellow-capped male and barred black-and-white flanks.
woodpecker
Taiwan Blue Magpie
Taiwan's national bird, a richly blue-bodied corvid with a black head, red bill, and an exceptionally long tail tipped in white.
corvid
Hooded Oriole
A slender oriole closely tied to palm trees, with adult males showing a bright orange-yellow hood set off by a black face, throat, and back, and a notably curved bill.
songbird
King Vulture
A striking tropical vulture with mostly creamy white plumage, jet-black flight and tail feathers, and a vividly multicolored bare head.
raptor
Palm-nut Vulture
An unusual, mostly white African vulture closely tied to oil palm groves and coastal wetlands, with black flight feathers and a partly black tail breaking up its pale plumage.
raptor
Japanese Grosbeak
A large, heavy-billed finch of East Asian forests, recognized by its black head, gray-brown body, and oversized pale-yellow bill.
songbird
Spot-breasted Woodpecker
A South American woodpecker with a yellow-green barred back and a breast marked by bold black spots, favoring open and semi-open wooded habitat.
woodpecker
Great Tit
A boldly patterned tit with a glossy black head and white cheeks, bright yellow underparts split by a black central stripe, and blue-grey wings with a white bar, among the most recognizable garden songbirds.
songbird
Reeves's Pheasant
A pheasant of central China renowned for having the longest tail feathers of any bird in its family, combined with golden, black-scaled body plumage and a bold black-and-white head pattern.
gamebird
Cirl Bunting
The Cirl Bunting is a farmland songbird of southern Europe, with males showing a bold black-and-yellow striped face and an olive breast band, now a conservation success story in parts of its range.
songbird
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
Scarlet Finch
One of the most vividly colored Himalayan finches, the male Scarlet Finch is nearly all brilliant red with contrasting black wings and tail.
songbird
Spruce Grouse
A boreal forest grouse with dark, densely barred plumage, a black throat patch in males, and a short tail typically tipped with rust-orange.
gamebird