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.

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American Kestrel

The smallest and most colorful falcon in North America, a common sight perched on roadside wires, told by its rufous back and tail and, in males, contrasting blue-gray wings.

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American Tree Sparrow

A hardy winter sparrow of snowy fields, recognizable by its rufous cap and the single dark spot centered on an otherwise plain gray breast.

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Mauritius Kestrel

The Mauritius Kestrel is a small, endemic island falcon famed as a major conservation success story, having recovered from a population of just a handful of individuals to a stable population in native forest habitat.

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Rock Kestrel

The Rock Kestrel is the resident southern African counterpart of the Common Kestrel, sharing a rufous, black-spotted back and grey head, hunting over open grassland and farmland.

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Fox Kestrel

The Fox Kestrel is a distinctive, richly colored African kestrel named for its overall fox-red plumage, with an unusually long rufous tail among kestrels.

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Common Kestrel

The Common Kestrel is a small falcon best known for its ability to hover in place while hunting, with long pointed wings and a distinctive tail that is blue-grey with a black band in males but barred rufous-brown in females.

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Grey Kestrel

The Grey Kestrel is a small, uniformly slate-grey falcon of West and Central African savanna, notably plain in plumage compared to most other kestrels.

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Banded Kestrel

The Banded Kestrel is a Madagascar-endemic falcon marked by fine, dense barring across nearly the entire body, giving it a distinctly patterned appearance among kestrels.

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Seychelles Kestrel

The Seychelles Kestrel is one of the smallest kestrels in the world, endemic to the granite islands of the Seychelles, with dark rufous-brown, spotted plumage.

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Spotted Kestrel

The Spotted Kestrel is a resident kestrel of Indonesian islands, closely related to the Common Kestrel, with a boldly spotted rufous back and pale, spotted underparts.

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Nankeen Kestrel

The Nankeen Kestrel is Australia's common small hovering falcon, named for the pale rufous-tan 'nankeen' color of its back, with a pale grey head and lightly spotted whitish underparts.

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Madagascar Kestrel

A small, adaptable island kestrel whose rufous, black-spotted feathers make it one of the most recognizable raptors found across Madagascar's varied habitats.

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Lesser Kestrel

A colonial, steppe-loving falcon closely resembling Common Kestrel but smaller and more social, with males showing an unspotted chestnut back and pale claws that separate the species from its more familiar relative.

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Dickinson's Kestrel

Dickinson's Kestrel is a small, short-tailed African kestrel with grey plumage overall and a finely scaled pale back, often associated with palm trees in savanna and woodland of southeastern Africa.

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Greater Kestrel

The Greater Kestrel is a robust southern African kestrel, larger than the Common Kestrel, with a barred rufous back, pale underparts, and a distinctive pale eye.

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Ferruginous Hawk

The Ferruginous Hawk is the largest North American buteo, with rich rufous ('ferruginous') back and leg feathers, a pale head and underparts, and a whitish tail, adapted to hunting over open, arid grassland.

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Roadside Hawk

A small, common, and conspicuous hawk of the Neotropics, often seen perched along roadsides, identified by its gray-brown chest contrasting with a rufous-barred belly and narrowly banded tail.

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Harris's Hawk

A dark chestnut-brown desert hawk notable for its social, cooperative hunting behavior, with a bold black-and-white tail pattern and chestnut shoulder patches.

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Gray Hawk

A slim, pale gray hawk of cottonwood-lined streams in the borderlands, notable for its finely barred plumage and slender, accipiter-like proportions among the buteos.

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Swainson's Hawk

Swainson's Hawk is a long-winged buteo of open grassland and prairie, typically showing a dark breast bib, paler belly, and notably dark flight feathers contrasting against paler underwing coverts, distinct from the broader-winged buteos it shares range with.

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Cooper's Hawk

Cooper's Hawk is a woodland accipiter with short rounded wings and a long, broadly banded tail, adult plumage showing blue-grey upperparts and fine rufous barring below, well suited to fast pursuit through trees.

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