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.
Lazuli Bunting
A small western North American bunting, the male Lazuli Bunting pairs a turquoise-blue head and back with a warm orange breast band and clean white belly.
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
Tui
The Tui is a New Zealand honeyeater whose plumage looks black at a distance but shimmers with iridescent green, blue, and bronze up close, set off by two curled white throat tufts.
songbird
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
House Martin
The House Martin is a small aerial songbird with glossy blue-black upperpart feathers, a bright white rump patch, and clean white underparts, built for a life spent almost entirely on the wing.
songbird
King Eider
The King Eider is a large arctic sea duck whose male combines a colorful blue-gray and pale green head with a black body and white breast, topped by an orange bill shield.
waterfowl
Rock Dove
The wild ancestor of the familiar city pigeon, typically blue-grey with bold black wing bars and a white rump, though feral descendants show enormous color variation.
dove pigeon
Mikado Pheasant
A striking Taiwanese endemic pheasant, with males cloaked in glossy blue-black plumage set off by a bold white wing bar and a long, narrowly white-barred tail.
gamebird
Common Wood Pigeon
Europe's largest common pigeon, easily identified by its soft blue-grey feathers, a bold white wing bar, and white neck patches absent in smaller relatives.
dove pigeon
Gray Peacock-pheasant
A forest-floor pheasant of South and Southeast Asia whose gray-brown feathers are dotted with brilliant blue-green and purple eyespots, most striking across the spread tail.
gamebird
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
Harlequin Duck
The Harlequin Duck is a small, boldly patterned sea duck whose male combines slate-blue plumage with crisp white crescents, spots, and stripes outlined in black, resembling a painted harlequin costume.
waterfowl
Green-naped Lorikeet
The Green-naped Lorikeet is a vividly colored parrot of New Guinea and surrounding islands, distinguished by a clear green band across the nape separating its blue head from its green back.
parrot
Merlin
A small, fast, direct-flying falcon of open northern landscapes, males showing slate-blue upperparts while females and juveniles are brown, both with heavily streaked underparts and no bold facial moustache.
raptor
Takahe
The Takahe is a large, flightless New Zealand rail with deep blue-green plumage and a massive red bill, once thought extinct before being rediscovered in remote alpine country.
wading bird
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
Kalij Pheasant
A forest pheasant of the Himalayan foothills and South Asia, with males showing overall glossy blue-black plumage and red facial skin, and considerable variation in pale scaling among subspecies.
gamebird
Mexican Jay
A blue-and-grey jay of oak and pine-oak canyons in the southwestern US and Mexico, distinguished from similar scrub-jays by its plain grey underparts without a breast band.
corvid
Elliot's Pheasant
A richly patterned Chinese forest pheasant, with males showing a chestnut body, blue-grey head, crisp white throat patch, and a long chestnut tail barred in black and white.
gamebird
Common Bullfinch
A stocky, shy woodland finch with males showing rosy-pink underparts against a blue-grey back and black cap, and both sexes sharing a bold white rump patch that flashes distinctively in flight.
songbird
Eurasian Nuthatch
The Eurasian Nuthatch is a stocky, tree-climbing songbird with slate-blue upperpart feathers and warm buff-orange underparts, plus short, stiff tail feathers adapted for headfirst descents down tree trunks.
songbird
Steller's Eider
Steller's Eider is the smallest of the eiders, a compact sea duck whose male shows a white head with a bold black eye patch, warm cinnamon underparts, and a glossy blue wing patch.
waterfowl
Plum-headed Parakeet
A small South Asian parakeet whose green body is topped by a distinctively colored head, plum-pink in males and soft grey-blue in females, each bordered by a fine neck ring.
parrot
Paradise Tanager
One of the most vividly colored songbirds in the world, the Paradise Tanager combines a turquoise-green head, black back, red rump, and purplish-blue throat in a single small canopy bird.
songbird