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.
Great Egret
A tall, all-white heron with a long yellow bill and black legs, famous for the delicate plumes it grows during the breeding season.
wading bird
Snowy Egret
A small, energetic white heron of the Americas known for its black bill, black legs, and bright yellow feet.
wading bird
Reddish Egret
A distinctive coastal heron known for its shaggy, reddish head and neck plumage and its animated, dancing foraging behavior.
wading bird
Intermediate Egret
A medium-sized all-white egret of Asia, Africa, and Australia, best told apart from its larger and smaller relatives by bill proportions and the extent of bare skin around the eye.
wading bird
Little Egret
A dainty white heron of Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia, best known for its black legs and bright yellow feet.
wading bird
Cattle Egret
A stocky white egret often seen far from water, following livestock and machinery to catch insects stirred up from the ground.
wading bird
Great Kiskadee
A large, boldly patterned flycatcher named for its loud, ringing call, with a black-and-white striped head, sulfur-yellow underparts, and rufous edging on the wings and tail. It is a common and conspicuous bird from Texas to Argentina.
songbird
Great Skua
A powerfully built, gull-sized seabird cloaked in dark brown plumage flecked with rufous and buff, best known for its bold white wing-flash and aggressive, piratical habits.
seabird
Black Heron
An African heron cloaked entirely in slate-black plumage, famous for spreading its wings into a feeding "umbrella" over the water to lure fish into shade.
wading bird
Great-tailed Grackle
The Great-tailed Grackle is a large, adaptable blackbird known for the male's exceptionally long, keeled tail and glossy iridescent plumage, now common across much of the southern and central United States and beyond.
songbird
Cocoi Heron
The South American counterpart to the Great Blue Heron, with a bold black cap and crisp white neck.
wading bird
Western Reef Heron
A coastal heron of Africa and Asia closely related to the Little Egret, occurring in both dark and white color forms.
wading bird
Pacific Reef Heron
A stocky coastal heron of the Indo-Pacific found in two color forms, an all slate-grey dark morph and a pure white light morph, both hunting the wave-washed edges of reefs and rocky shores.
wading bird
Common Yellowthroat
A small, skulking warbler best known for the male's bold black facial mask bordered in white, paired with a bright yellow throat.
songbird
Common Gull
A neat, medium-sized gull of Europe and Asia known as Mew Gull in North American populations, the Common Gull shows pale gray back feathers, black wingtips with white spots, and a gentle, rounded head shape.
seabird
White-faced Heron
The most widespread heron in Australia and New Zealand, easily recognized by its soft blue-grey plumage set off by a clean white face.
wading bird
Little Blue Heron
A heron with a striking life-history twist: pure white as a juvenile, then molting into a deep slate-purple plumage as an adult.
wading bird
Tricolored Heron
A slender dark heron of the Americas, easily told from other dark herons by the crisp white line running down its foreneck and belly.
wading bird
Willie Wagtail
A bold black-and-white fantail relative common across Australia, the Willie Wagtail is known for constantly wagging its long tail from side to side while perched or foraging.
songbird
Helmeted Hornbill
The Helmeted Hornbill is a large, distinctive Southeast Asian rainforest bird best known for its solid casque and greatly elongated central tail feathers, which extend far beyond the rest of the tail. Its dark body plumage contrasts with white leg feathers and a long, banded tail.
other
Temminck's Tragopan
A vividly colored Asian pheasant with rich orange-red plumage dotted in pearly white spots, best known for the male's inflatable blue throat lappet used in courtship display.
gamebird
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.
raptor