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.
Red-tailed Hawk
The Red-tailed Hawk is a widespread North American buteo best known for its brick-red adult tail, pale underparts with a dark belly band, and broad, rounded wings often seen soaring over open country and roadsides.
raptor
Zone-tailed Hawk
A blackish hawk that closely mimics the flight silhouette and dark coloring of the Turkey Vulture, distinguished mainly by its banded tail feathers.
raptor
White-tailed Hawk
A handsome open-country hawk with a gray back, white underparts, rufous shoulders, and a crisp white tail marked by a single bold black band near the tip.
raptor
Red-shouldered Hawk
The Red-shouldered Hawk is a woodland buteo with rufous-barred underparts, reddish shoulder patches, a boldly black-and-white banded tail, and a translucent pale crescent near the wingtip visible in flight.
raptor
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.
raptor
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.
raptor
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.
raptor
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.
raptor
Papuan Hawk-Owl
A little-known, long-tailed forest owl endemic to New Guinea, with a hawk-like reduced facial disc and boldly barred underparts.
owl
Rough-legged Hawk
The Rough-legged Hawk is an Arctic-breeding buteo with a pale tail base and dark terminal band, a dark belly patch, and dark carpal patches on the underwing, plus legs feathered fully to the toes for insulation.
raptor
Broad-winged Hawk
The Broad-winged Hawk is a compact, forest-nesting buteo with rufous-barred underparts and a short tail marked by bold, wide black-and-white bands, famous for gathering in enormous migrating flocks called 'kettles.'
raptor
Sharp-shinned Hawk
The Sharp-shinned Hawk is North America's smallest accipiter, with short rounded wings, a long square-tipped banded tail, and adult plumage of slate-grey upperparts with fine rufous barring below, built for darting through dense cover.
raptor
Common Black Hawk
A stocky, broad-winged hawk of wooded streams and mangroves, easily told from other dark raptors by its nearly all-black plumage crossed by a single wide white tail band.
raptor
Northern Hawk-Owl
A falcon-like, day-hunting owl of the boreal forest, with a long tail, pointed wings, and boldly barred underparts, often seen perched conspicuously atop treetops scanning for prey.
owl
Red-tailed Black Cockatoo
A large Australian cockatoo, the male Red-tailed Black Cockatoo has glossy black plumage with bold red tail panels, while females show duller, yellow-spotted plumage and an orange-yellow tail pattern.
parrot
Red Junglefowl
The wild ancestor of the domestic chicken, with males displaying glossy orange-gold neck hackles and long, curved, iridescent black tail feathers.
gamebird
Red Kite
A rufous, forked-tailed raptor of Europe whose long, angular wings and deeply forked tail feathers are among the most recognizable silhouettes in the sky.
raptor
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.
raptor
Red-crowned Crane
One of the rarest cranes in the world, a large white East Asian crane with a black neck, a bare red crown, and elongated black secondary feathers that form a false 'tail' over its true white tail.
wading bird
Red-legged Honeycreeper
A small tropical songbird whose breeding males flash violet-blue plumage against solid black wings and tail, while females and non-breeding males wear soft green. It ranges from Mexico through much of South America, favoring forest edges and gardens where it sips nectar and gleans fruit.
songbird
Bar-tailed Godwit
A high-Arctic-breeding godwit renowned for extraordinary nonstop transoceanic migratory flights, showing a finely barred tail and rich brick-red breeding underparts quite different from the bold black tail of the related Black-tailed Godwit.
shorebird
Red-vented Bulbul
A common South Asian songbird with a short crest, dark scaly-edged plumage, and a bright red patch under the tail.
songbird
Red-billed Streamertail
Jamaica's national bird, the Red-billed Streamertail is famed for the male's extraordinarily long, curved tail feathers that produce a humming sound in flight.
hummingbird
Red Bird-of-paradise
The Red Bird-of-paradise is distinguished by the male's vivid crimson flank plumes and unique curled, ribbon-like black tail wires used in display. It is found only on a small number of islands in the Raja Ampat region of Indonesia.
songbird