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.
Dark-eyed Junco
A familiar winter feeder bird, the Dark-eyed Junco flashes bright white outer tail feathers against a slate-gray or brown body when it flies.
songbird
Dark-breasted Rosefinch
An unusually plain rosefinch, lacking the streaking typical of the group, with a dusky rosy-brown body and only a subtle pink wash.
songbird
Green Sandpiper
A dark, almost blackish sandpiper with a contrasting white rump and blackish underwing, often flushed abruptly from small secluded pools.
shorebird
Brown Bullfinch
A drab, olive-brown bullfinch of Asian hill forests that lacks the bright colors of its relatives, identified mainly by its stubby bill and subtle wing bar.
songbird
Common Bulbul
A widespread African songbird with plain brown plumage, a darker cap, and a bright yellow vent, common in gardens, scrub, and savanna woodlands.
songbird
Willow Warbler
A tiny, long-distance migrant warbler nearly identical to the Chiffchaff, best separated at the feather level by slightly yellower tones and pale pinkish (rather than dark) legs.
songbird
Golden Eagle
A powerful upland raptor whose dark brown plumage and golden nape feathers give it its name, with young birds showing crisp white flight-feather patches that fade with age.
raptor
Rock Pigeon
A stocky, familiar city bird whose feather color is famously variable, though wild-type individuals retain a blue-gray body with two dark wingbars and an iridescent green-purple neck.
dove pigeon
Common Snipe
The Eurasian counterpart of Wilson's Snipe, sharing the same superb camouflage pattern and winnowing tail-feather display, distinguished mainly by subtle wing and tail feather details assessable in the hand.
shorebird
Chihuahuan Raven
A desert raven of the American Southwest, smaller than the Common Raven, with hidden white feather bases at the neck.
corvid
White-necked Crow
A large Caribbean crow that looks entirely black at rest but reveals white feather bases on the neck when feathers are disturbed.
corvid
Crested Guineafowl
A forest-dwelling guineafowl topped with a distinctive curly, black feather crest instead of the bony casque of its savanna relatives.
gamebird
Lesser Rhea
A smaller relative of the Greater Rhea found in Patagonia and the high Andes, with soft mottled brown plumage flecked with pale feather tips that give it a speckled appearance.
other
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
European Robin
An iconic garden songbird with a vivid orange-red face and breast set against olive-brown upperparts, one of the most recognizable feather patterns in European gardens.
songbird
Mallard
The world's most familiar duck, identifiable from almost any single wing feather by its glossy blue speculum bordered in white, shared by both sexes.
waterfowl
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
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
Canada Goose
A large, familiar goose whose black neck feathers set off by a bold white chinstrap patch make it one of the easiest waterfowl to recognize from a single feather cluster.
waterfowl
Rook
A glossy, all-black farmland corvid recognized in life by its bare greyish face skin and shaggy thigh feathering, and in feather form by its strong purple-blue sheen.
corvid
Wood Thrush
A woodland thrush with a warm rufous-brown back brightest on the head, and a boldly spotted white breast that gives it one of the most striking feather patterns among eastern forest songbirds.
songbird
Gadwall
A subtly patterned grey dabbling duck best known for a crisp white speculum patch and, in males, a bold black rear end, both visible even on a single found feather.
waterfowl
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
Crested Owl
A dark, richly colored Neotropical rainforest owl with unusually long, prominent whitish ear-tuft feathers and a bold white eyebrow stripe against otherwise dark brown plumage.
owl