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.
Stock Dove
A plainer, smaller relative of the Wood Pigeon lacking white markings, identified instead by two short black wing bars and an iridescent green neck patch.
dove pigeon
White-tipped Dove
A stocky, plain grayish-brown dove of tropical and subtropical woodland, best identified by the crisp white tips on its outer tail feathers and its low, mournful call.
dove pigeon
Brown-headed Cowbird
A small blackbird best known for laying its eggs in other birds' nests, with males showing a sharply contrasting brown head against a glossy black body and females entirely plain gray-brown.
songbird
Diamond Dove
One of the smallest doves in the world, a soft gray-brown Australian desert species with tiny white-spotted wings and a bright red ring around the eye.
dove pigeon
Red Collared-Dove
A small Asian dove with pronounced sexual dimorphism, the male showing a rich wine-red body while the female is a much duller grayish-brown.
dove pigeon
American Robin
The American Robin is a familiar thrush whose warm orange breast feathers and plain gray-brown back feathers make it one of the easiest yard birds to identify from a single dropped feather.
songbird
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
Bank Swallow
A small, plain brown-and-white swallow told from other species by a clean brown breast band across otherwise white underparts.
songbird
Gray-cheeked Thrush
A subdued, cold-toned thrush of the far north, distinguished from similar species mainly by its plain grayish face and weak or absent eye-ring.
songbird
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
Marsh Tit
A plain-plumaged woodland tit with a small, neat glossy black cap and bib set against pale buff-brown body feathers, with plain wings lacking any wingbar.
songbird
Stilt Sandpiper
A long-legged, long-billed sandpiper whose breeding-plumage feathers are boldly barred across the underparts, giving it a strikingly different look from the plain grays of its winter attire.
shorebird
Temminck's Stint
A small, plain-plumaged stint that favors quiet freshwater edges over open mudflats, distinguished from its rufous relatives by generally duller upperpart feathers and distinctive white outer tail feathers.
shorebird
Spotted Flycatcher
The Spotted Flycatcher is a plain grey-brown songbird best recognized by behavior rather than bold color, its subtly streaked feathers built for a life of short aerial sallies from an open perch.
songbird
Terek Sandpiper
A distinctive sandpiper with a long, strongly upturned bill and short orange-yellow legs, the Terek Sandpiper shows plain pale gray-brown feathers with a dark scapular streak and an animated feeding style.
shorebird
Dodo
A large, flightless pigeon relative once native to Mauritius, known for its stout grey-brown body, oversized hooked bill, and small, curled tuft of tail feathers; it has been extinct since the late 1600s.
dove pigeon
Snail Kite
A marsh-dwelling raptor with a thin, deeply curved bill for extracting apple snails, and feathers ranging from slaty gray in males to warm streaked brown in females and young birds.
raptor
Rock Ptarmigan
A circumpolar tundra grouse that turns from mottled gray-brown in summer to pure white in winter, always retaining black tail feathers as a year-round field mark.
gamebird
Bushtit
A tiny, drab, highly social western songbird whose plain gray-brown feathers and long slender tail relative to its round body make it easy to identify despite its lack of bold markings.
songbird
Little Owl
A small, flat-headed owl whose boldly white-spotted brown feathers and habit of perching in daylight set it apart from Europe's other owls.
owl
Field Sparrow
A small, subtly marked sparrow of old fields whose soft rufous-brown and gray feathers lack bold streaking, standing out mainly for their clean, quiet coloring.
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
Yellow-rumped Warbler
One of North America's most abundant warblers, easily known by small bright-yellow patches on the rump, sides, and crown set against streaky gray-brown feathers.
songbird
Eurasian Pygmy-Owl
Europe's smallest owl, a boreal forest specialist that hunts small birds and rodents largely by day. Its feathers are gray-brown to rufous with crisp white spotting and a narrowly barred tail.
owl