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.
Lesser Flamingo
The smallest flamingo species, often showing the most vividly saturated pink plumage of any flamingo.
wading bird
Little Raven
The smallest of Australia's raven species, common across farmland and open woodland in the continent's southeast.
corvid
Little Crow
The smallest of Australia's crow species, adapted to arid interior habitats and often seen in nomadic flocks.
corvid
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
Hahn's Macaw
The smallest macaw species, mostly green with a small blue forehead patch and a red patch at the bend of the wing.
parrot
Pygmy Nuthatch
The Pygmy Nuthatch is a tiny, highly social western pine-forest nuthatch whose dull gray-brown cap and small feather size distinguish it from other nuthatches.
songbird
Indigo Bunting
A small eastern songbird whose breeding males appear an intense, uniform iridescent blue with no other markings, while females are entirely plain brown, making feathers of the two sexes look like different species.
songbird
Bank Swallow
A small, plain brown-and-white swallow told from other species by a clean brown breast band across otherwise white underparts.
songbird
Wilson's Bird-of-paradise
Wilson's Bird-of-paradise is a small, intensely colorful species with a red back, yellow nape, an iridescent green breast shield, and a bare, patterned blue crown. It is restricted to a couple of small Indonesian islands where males display and clear small ground courts.
songbird
Greater Flamingo
The largest flamingo species, with pale pink body plumage that hides bold black flight feathers revealed only in flight.
wading bird
Green Junglefowl
An Indonesian junglefowl covered in glossy, scale-patterned green-black feathers, with a rounded, multicolored comb unlike any other junglefowl species.
gamebird
Masked Booby
The largest booby species, with a clean white body set off by black flight feathers, a black tail, and a dark facial mask around the bill.
seabird
Golden-tailed Woodpecker
An African woodpecker with bold spotting on the underparts rather than barring, plus a golden tint to the tail feathers that gives the species its name.
woodpecker
Bohemian Waxwing
A sleek, crested songbird best known for the bright red, wax-like tips on its wing feathers, which give the species its name.
songbird
Congo Peafowl
Africa's only peafowl species, endemic to the rainforests of the Democratic Republic of Congo, notably smaller and shorter-tailed than its Asian relatives with no elaborate fanning train.
gamebird
Little Tern
The Old World counterpart to the Least Tern, a tiny, fast-flying species of European, African, and Asian coasts, distinguished by its small size, yellow bill, and bold white forehead patch.
seabird
Least Tern
The smallest tern in North America, a diminutive, fast-flying species of sandy beaches and river sandbars, easily told by its small size, yellow bill, and white forehead patch above the black cap.
seabird
White-breasted Nuthatch
The White-breasted Nuthatch is a tree-climbing songbird whose clean blue-gray back and pure white face and breast feathers are easy to separate from most other backyard species.
songbird
Firecrest
The Firecrest is one of Europe's smallest songbirds, a mite of a bird whose soft, downy contour feathers are topped with a blazing orange-and-black crown stripe unlike any similarly sized species.
songbird
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.
raptor
Glaucous-winged Gull
A common gull of the North Pacific coast, the Glaucous-winged Gull shows pale gray wingtip feathers with little or no black, differing subtly from most other large gulls, and frequently hybridizes with related species.
seabird
Vesper Sparrow
A streaky grassland sparrow best identified by white outer tail feathers and a small chestnut shoulder patch.
songbird
Chihuahuan Raven
A desert raven of the American Southwest, smaller than the Common Raven, with hidden white feather bases at the neck.
corvid
Hooded Vulture
A small, slender African vulture with plain dark brown plumage and a distinctive whitish downy hood of feathers on the head and neck.
raptor