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.
Australian White Ibis
A common Australian ibis with white body plumage and a bare black head and neck, now a familiar sight scavenging in city parks and rubbish bins as well as its native wetland habitats.
wading bird
House Finch
The House Finch is a common feeder finch whose male feathers show a diet-dependent red-to-orange wash on the head and breast over a brown-streaked body, while females are plain streaked brown.
songbird
Red-winged Blackbird
A common marsh-dwelling blackbird whose males display bold red-and-yellow shoulder patches on glossy black plumage, while females are entirely different, streaked brown like a large sparrow.
songbird
Great-tailed Grackle
The Great-tailed Grackle is a large, adaptable blackbird known for the male's exceptionally long, keeled tail and glossy iridescent plumage, now common across much of the southern and central United States and beyond.
songbird
Boat-tailed Grackle
The Boat-tailed Grackle is a large coastal grackle with a long, distinctively keeled tail, males glossy black with iridescence and females a much smaller warm brown, common along Atlantic and Gulf Coast marshes.
songbird
Tropical Kingbird
A common and widespread tyrant flycatcher recognized by its pale gray head and throat fading into lemon-yellow underparts, paired with a notched, dark tail. It favors open habitats with scattered perches from which it sallies for insects.
songbird
Great Kiskadee
A large, boldly patterned flycatcher named for its loud, ringing call, with a black-and-white striped head, sulfur-yellow underparts, and rufous edging on the wings and tail. It is a common and conspicuous bird from Texas to Argentina.
songbird
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
Arctic Tern
A slender, long-distance migrant famous for traveling between Arctic breeding grounds and Antarctic waters each year, distinguished from the similar Common Tern by an all-red bill and more uniformly translucent primaries.
seabird
Ring-billed Gull
A common, adaptable medium-sized gull of North America named for the black band around its bill, the Ring-billed Gull shows pale gray back feathers and yellow legs, thriving in habitats from lakeshores to parking lots.
seabird
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
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
Goldcrest
Europe's smallest bird, identifiable even from a single tiny feather by its vivid black-bordered crown stripe — orange in males, yellow in females — set against olive-green plumage.
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 Spotted Woodpecker
The Lesser Spotted Woodpecker is Europe's smallest woodpecker, its black-and-white barred back and small size distinguishing its feathers from the much larger, bolder-patched Great Spotted Woodpecker.
woodpecker
Plush-crested Jay
A South American jay with a velvety black face, glowing yellow eyes, and a soft blue patch on the nape, its tail broadly tipped in white.
corvid
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
Blue Crane
South Africa's national bird, a pale blue-grey crane with unusually long, trailing wing-tip feathers that can nearly brush the ground when the bird is standing.
wading bird
Sandhill Crane
A tall North American crane, gray overall but often stained rusty-brown from preening with iron-rich mud, famous for its massive migratory staging flocks and rolling bugle call.
wading bird
Yellow-headed Caracara
A pale-headed, adaptable caracara commonly seen around cattle and open farmland across Central and South America, easily told by its creamy-yellow head and dark eye-stripe.
raptor
White-winged Scoter
The White-winged Scoter is the largest of the scoters, a heavy black sea duck distinguished by a bright white wing patch and a small comma-shaped white mark around the eye.
waterfowl