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.
Verdin
The Verdin is a tiny desert songbird with a bright yellow head and throat set against gray body plumage, known for building large, conspicuous domed nests in thorny desert shrubs.
songbird
Wrentit
The Wrentit is a secretive, chaparral-dwelling songbird known for its long, often upright tail and its bouncing-ball song, more often heard than seen in dense Pacific coast scrub.
songbird
White-throated Robin
The White-throated Robin is a strikingly patterned Old World songbird, with breeding males showing slate-gray upperparts, orange underparts, and a bold white throat outlined in black.
songbird
Lapland Longspur
The Lapland Longspur is a circumpolar Arctic-breeding songbird that winters in large flocks on open fields, showing a bold black-and-chestnut head pattern in breeding plumage.
songbird
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
Black-headed Bunting
The Black-headed Bunting is a boldly colored songbird of southeastern Europe and southwest Asia, with breeding males showing a solid black head, chestnut back, and vivid yellow underparts.
songbird
Painted Bunting
Often called the most colorful songbird in North America, the male Painted Bunting shows a blue head, red underparts, and green back all on the same bird, while females are a uniform bright green.
songbird
Magpie-lark
A common Australian black-and-white songbird, the Magpie-lark shows bold facial and body markings that differ between males and females, and is frequently seen foraging near water on open ground.
songbird
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
Chestnut-collared Longspur
The Chestnut-collared Longspur is a prairie songbird whose breeding males show striking black underparts and a chestnut nape collar, delivered in a fluttering display flight over grassland.
songbird
European Starling
An abundant introduced songbird whose feathers change appearance through wear alone, shifting from spotted in fresh winter plumage to glossy and unspotted by breeding season.
songbird
Red-headed Bunting
The Red-headed Bunting is a brightly colored central Asian songbird whose breeding males show a chestnut-orange head, greenish back, and yellow underparts, closely related to the Black-headed Bunting.
songbird
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
Yellow Wagtail
The Yellow Wagtail is a slender summer-visiting songbird whose plumage is yellow from throat to undertail, set against an olive-green back, distinguishing its feathers from the more grey-toned wagtails.
songbird
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
Common Raven
One of the largest songbirds in the world, the Common Raven produces long, heavy, glossy-black feathers with a pronounced iridescent sheen and a distinctive wedge-shaped tail profile.
corvid
Yellow-breasted Bunting
The Yellow-breasted Bunting is a strikingly colored Eurasian songbird, once abundant but now rare due to unsustainable historical trapping pressure along its migratory routes.
songbird
Superb Lyrebird
One of the largest songbirds, the male Superb Lyrebird carries an extraordinary lyre-shaped tail with lace-like filamentous feathers, displayed during elaborate courtship performances.
songbird
Guianan Cock-of-the-rock
A brilliant orange-yellow songbird of the Guiana Shield's rocky lowland forests, males show the same striking disc-shaped crest as their Andean relative, displayed at communal leks near boulders.
songbird
Grey Butcherbird
A boldly patterned Australian songbird, the Grey Butcherbird shows gray upperparts, a black head marking, and clean white underparts, paired with a strong, hooked bill used to catch and impale prey.
songbird
Yellowhammer
The Yellowhammer is a farmland bunting whose males show vivid yellow head and underpart feathers against a chestnut-streaked back, one of the most colorful seed-eating songbirds of open countryside.
songbird
Grey Wagtail
The Grey Wagtail is a slender, long-tailed songbird whose lemon-yellow underpart feathers contrast with a blue-grey back, making it the most colorful of the European wagtails found along fast-flowing water.
songbird
Eurasian Nuthatch
The Eurasian Nuthatch is a stocky, tree-climbing songbird with slate-blue upperpart feathers and warm buff-orange underparts, plus short, stiff tail feathers adapted for headfirst descents down tree trunks.
songbird
Sooty Falcon
The Sooty Falcon is a slim, uniformly dark grey falcon of desert coastlines and offshore islands of the Middle East and northeastern Africa, sharing Eleonora's Falcon's unusual late-breeding strategy tied to songbird migration.
raptor