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.
Violet Sabrewing
A large, deep violet Central American hummingbird named for the thickened, curved shafts of its outer primary feathers, a structural feature unique to sabrewing hummingbirds.
hummingbird
Streaked Spiderhunter
A large, heavily streaked relative of sunbirds found in Asian hill forests, notable for its long curved bill and bold dark streaking on yellowish underparts.
songbird
Red-billed Chough
An all-black cliff-dwelling corvid with a long curved red bill and red legs, known for its acrobatic flight over coastal and mountain terrain.
corvid
Mute Swan
An enormous, entirely white waterbird whose large, gently curved feathers are unmistakable simply by their sheer size among freshwater birds.
waterfowl
Red Junglefowl
The wild ancestor of the domestic chicken, with males displaying glossy orange-gold neck hackles and long, curved, iridescent black tail feathers.
gamebird
Red-billed Streamertail
Jamaica's national bird, the Red-billed Streamertail is famed for the male's extraordinarily long, curved tail feathers that produce a humming sound in flight.
hummingbird
Hawfinch
A bull-necked, massive-billed finch whose wing feathers include uniquely curved, hooked secondaries found in no other European songbird.
songbird
Hooded Oriole
A slender oriole closely tied to palm trees, with adult males showing a bright orange-yellow hood set off by a black face, throat, and back, and a notably curved bill.
songbird
California Thrasher
The largest North American thrasher, a dark chocolate-brown bird of California chaparral with a long, strongly curved bill adapted for digging through leaf litter.
songbird
Bulwer's Pheasant
A Bornean forest pheasant with glossy blue-black plumage, an extraordinary curved white tail, and bright red facial wattles that expand dramatically during display.
gamebird
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
Long-billed Corella
A white Australian cockatoo with an unusually long, curved upper bill, the Long-billed Corella shows more extensive pink-red coloring on the face and breast than its close relatives.
parrot
Great Curassow
A large, turkey-sized forest bird, with males glossy black and white below and topped by a curly crest and bright yellow bill knob. Females occur in several distinct color morphs, ranging from barred to rufous to blackish.
gamebird
Southern Yellow-billed Hornbill
The Southern Yellow-billed Hornbill is a mid-sized African savanna hornbill with speckled black-and-white upperparts, white underparts, and a long, curved pale yellow bill. It is a familiar sight foraging on the ground in dry woodland across southern Africa.
other
Gang-gang Cockatoo
A small, distinctive Australian cockatoo, the Gang-gang shows scaly gray body plumage in both sexes, with males further marked by a bright red head and a wispy, curled crest.
parrot
Black Swan
An Australian swan with distinctively curled, sooty black-gray body feathers and a striking red bill, its white flight feathers hidden until the wings are spread.
waterfowl
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
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
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
Red Bird-of-paradise
The Red Bird-of-paradise is distinguished by the male's vivid crimson flank plumes and unique curled, ribbon-like black tail wires used in display. It is found only on a small number of islands in the Raja Ampat region of Indonesia.
songbird
Twelve-wired Bird-of-paradise
The Twelve-wired Bird-of-paradise is named for the dozen thin, curled wire-like filaments trailing from the male's bright yellow flank plumes, used to brush against a female's face during courtship. It inhabits lowland swamp forest across New Guinea and nearby islands.
songbird
Great White Pelican
A massive white pelican with a subtle pinkish tinge, black flight feathers, and a tufted nape crest, found across freshwater and coastal wetlands of Africa and Eurasia.
seabird
Hazel Grouse
A small, secretive forest grouse of northern Eurasia, best known for its finely patterned gray-brown plumage and a bold black-and-white throat patch in males.
gamebird
Little Stint
One of the smallest sandpipers, the Little Stint shows warm rufous-fringed feathers and pale mantle lines in breeding plumage, a delicate miniature counterpart to larger calidrids across Eurasia and Africa.
shorebird