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.
Grey Warbler
The Grey Warbler is one of New Zealand's smallest birds, a plain grey-brown insect-eater best known for its long, trilling song rather than its understated plumage.
songbird
Golden-naped Finch
A Himalayan finch, also known by the alternate name Gold-naped Finch, whose male shows a black head brightened by a golden nape patch above a rich orange-brown body.
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
Chinese Grosbeak
A medium-sized East Asian finch with a black head, gray-brown body, and a bright yellow bill tipped in black, smaller and more widespread than its relative the Japanese Grosbeak.
songbird
Cactus Wren
The Cactus Wren is the largest wren in North America, a bold desert bird whose heavily spotted brown plumage and harsh, rattling song make it a signature sound of the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts.
songbird
Laughing Owl
An extinct New Zealand owl known for its odd, laughter-like call, with soft brown mottled plumage and a paler facial area; now known only from museum specimens.
owl
Wahlberg's Eagle
A slender, migratory savanna eagle of Africa notable for its variable plumage color morphs, ranging from pale cream-brown to dark chocolate, all sharing a distinctive narrow-winged, small-headed silhouette.
raptor
Jack Snipe
The smallest snipe species, the Jack Snipe shows striking golden-buff back stripes with an iridescent purple-green sheen, set off by dark brown plumage, and is famous for its secretive, near-silent behavior.
shorebird
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
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
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
Northern Pygmy-Owl
A tiny, fierce diurnal owl of western mountain forests, notable for the false 'eyespots' on the back of its head. Its feathers show heavy white spotting on a rufous or gray-brown ground color.
owl
Short-toed Treecreeper
The Short-toed Treecreeper is a small, bark-colored woodland bird that spirals up tree trunks probing for insects, its mottled brown plumage providing near-perfect camouflage against bark.
songbird
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
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
Cedar Waxwing
A sleek, crested bird best known for the small, waxy red tips on its secondary wing feathers, paired with a soft brown-to-gray body and a bright yellow band across the tail tip.
songbird
Bald Eagle
North America's national bird, whose pure white head and tail feathers contrasting with dark brown body plumage make the adult unmistakable, though immatures take years to acquire this pattern.
raptor
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
Snow Bunting
The Snow Bunting is a hardy Arctic songbird whose breeding males become strikingly white and black, while winter birds show warmer buff-brown tones as they flock over open fields and shorelines farther south.
songbird
Purple Finch
The Purple Finch is a chunky finch whose males show a raspberry-red wash extending over the back and rump, deeper than the localized red of the House Finch, while females show bold brown facial striping.
songbird
Osprey
The Osprey is a fish-eating raptor with dark brown upperparts, a white head marked by a bold dark eye-stripe, white underparts, and long, angled wings showing a distinctive dark carpal patch and barred flight feathers.
raptor
Egyptian Goose
A pale buff-brown African waterfowl, more closely related to shelducks than true geese, marked by a dark chestnut eye patch, a chestnut breast smudge, and a bold white wing patch bordered in iridescent green.
waterfowl
Grass Owl
A ground-nesting barn-owl relative of tall grasslands from Asia to Australia, with long slender legs and golden-buff to dark brown feathers finely spotted, adapted to a life spent low over open grass.
owl
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