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.
Mountain Bluebird
A slender, sky-blue songbird of western North American high country, the male appearing almost entirely blue with no rusty breast patch, unlike its bluebird relatives.
songbird
Western Bluebird
A small western thrush whose males show rich cobalt-blue upperparts and wings against a rusty chest, making shed body feathers easy to spot on the ground under nest boxes and fence lines.
songbird
Eastern Bluebird
A small, vividly colored thrush whose blue feathers are produced by feather structure rather than pigment, giving them a shifting brightness depending on the angle of light.
songbird
Mountain Plover
An unusual, upland-dwelling North American plover of dry short-grass prairie, notably lacking the dark breast band typical of most of its shorebird relatives.
shorebird
Mountain Chickadee
The Mountain Chickadee is a western conifer-forest specialist whose black cap is broken by a bold white eyebrow stripe not seen in other common chickadees.
songbird
Mountain Quail
The largest quail native to North America, instantly recognized by the single thin, straight plume that projects from its crown.
gamebird
Mountain Caracara
A bold, high-altitude Andean raptor with black upperparts and breast set against a clean white belly and rump, often seen scavenging near mountain settlements and livestock.
raptor
Plain Mountain Finch
A plainly plumaged high-altitude finch of the Himalayas and Central Asia, relying on streaky brown camouflage rather than bright color.
songbird
Mountain Imperial Pigeon
The Mountain Imperial Pigeon is a large, heavy-bodied forest pigeon with pale grey underparts contrasting against a deep maroon-brown back and wings.
dove pigeon
Black-headed Mountain Finch
A high-altitude finch of the Himalayas and Central Asian ranges, known for its blackish head and body offset by rosy-pink wing feathers.
songbird
Blue-throated Mountain-gem
A large mountain-canyon hummingbird known for its deep blue throat patch and an unusually broad, dark tail edged with bold white corners.
hummingbird
Blue Bird-of-paradise
The Blue Bird-of-paradise is known for the male's dramatic upside-down display, during which fanned iridescent blue flank plumes are shown off against otherwise black plumage. It lives in the montane forests of Papua New Guinea's central highlands.
songbird
Ring Ouzel
A blackbird relative of upland Europe, told from the Eurasian Blackbird by its bold white crescent across the breast and pale-scaled wing feathers.
songbird
Northern Pygmy-Owl
A tiny, fierce diurnal owl of western mountain forests, notable for the false 'eyespots' on the back of its head. Its feathers show heavy white spotting on a rufous or gray-brown ground color.
owl
Barrow's Goldeneye
Barrow's Goldeneye is a striking western and northern diving duck distinguished from the similar Common Goldeneye by a crescent-shaped white face patch and bolder black markings on the back.
waterfowl
Kea
A large, intelligent mountain parrot known for drab olive-green plumage that hides brilliant orange-red under the wings.
parrot
Zenaida Dove
A warm cinnamon-brown Caribbean dove closely related to the Mourning Dove, told apart by its shorter, rounded tail edged in white.
dove pigeon
Alpine Chough
A glossy black mountain corvid with a short yellow bill, often seen soaring at very high altitudes near cliffs and mountain huts.
corvid
European Roller
A vividly blue bird of open country, named for its acrobatic tumbling display flights during the breeding season.
other
Rock Partridge
A mountain partridge of the Alps and Balkans, near-identical in plumage to the Chukar, with a black gorget stripe and bold chestnut-barred flanks.
gamebird
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
Cassin's Finch
A western North American mountain finch whose males show a bright rosy-red crown sharply contrasting with a brown-streaked back.
songbird
Beavan's Bullfinch
A compact, orange-breasted bullfinch of Himalayan and Chinese mountain forests, easily told by its gray cap and bold pale wing bar.
songbird
Copper Pheasant
A pheasant endemic to Japan, with males displaying an overall rich coppery-red plumage and a long tail, inhabiting dense mountain forest across the country.
gamebird