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.
Red-legged Kittiwake
A cliff-nesting Bering Sea specialist, smaller and darker-mantled than its more widespread relative, and readily told by its bright red legs and shorter bill.
seabird
Red Knot
A stocky, medium-sized sandpiper famous for spectacular long-distance migrations, showing warm salmon-red underparts in breeding plumage that fade to plain, softly scaled gray for winter.
shorebird
Olive Warbler
The Olive Warbler is a small, treetop songbird of southwestern highland pines, notable for the male's burnt-orange head and bold black mask.
songbird
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
Olive Sparrow
The Olive Sparrow is a shy, thicket-dwelling sparrow of south Texas brushland, identified by its olive-green back and chestnut-striped crown.
songbird
Red Crossbill
A stocky finch with a distinctively crossed bill adapted for prying seeds from conifer cones, males brick-red and females olive-toned.
songbird
Olive-sided Flycatcher
A large-headed, big-chested flycatcher whose dark olive-gray flanks and white central stripe create a distinctive vest-like appearance.
songbird
Red-cockaded Woodpecker
A southeastern pine specialist woodpecker best known for its large white cheek patch and its habit of excavating cavities only in living pine trees.
woodpecker
Ocellated Turkey
A striking Central American turkey with vivid blue-bronze iridescent body feathers and tail feathers marked with distinctive eye-shaped spots.
gamebird
Red-breasted Meadowlark
A grassland songbird of South America, with males showing a striking bright red throat and breast against an otherwise black body, while females are cryptically streaked brown.
songbird
Oak Titmouse
The Oak Titmouse is a plain, uniformly grayish-brown California relative of the Tufted Titmouse whose lack of bold markings is itself a key identification clue.
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
Nuttall's Woodpecker
A small woodpecker largely restricted to California oak woodlands, similar to Ladder-backed Woodpecker but with cleaner white underparts and a solid black nape band.
woodpecker
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
Northwestern Crow
A compact, all-black crow of the Pacific Northwest coast that is often seen foraging along tidelines and beaches.
corvid
Red-billed Blue Magpie
A long-tailed, blue-grey Asian corvid with a black head, red bill and legs, and a spectacular graduated tail tipped in white.
corvid
Northern Wheatear
The Northern Wheatear is an open-country songbird best known for its bold white rump and black-and-white tail pattern, flashed conspicuously in flight above blue-grey or buff-brown body plumage.
songbird
Red-billed Pigeon
A large, dark pigeon of Texas and Central American woodlands, named for its bicolored bill and identified by its rich maroon-purple head and breast.
dove pigeon
Northern Waterthrush
A streaky, ground-walking warbler of wooded wetlands and stream edges that constantly bobs its tail while foraging along muddy banks.
songbird
Pine Warbler
A warbler tightly associated with pine forests, showing subdued olive-yellow upperparts, dull yellow underparts, and two whitish wing bars, less flashy than many of its warbler relatives.
songbird
Northern Shoveler
A dabbling duck best known for its oversized, spoon-shaped bill, with males showing a bold green head, white breast, and chestnut flanks over pale blue wing patches.
waterfowl
Pine Bunting
The Pine Bunting is a Siberian relative of the Yellowhammer, with breeding males showing a striking white head pattern and chestnut breast band instead of yellow tones.
songbird
Northern Saw-whet Owl
One of the smallest owls in North America, with soft reddish-brown, white-streaked plumage, no ear tufts, and a distinctive whitish facial disc bordered by a dark rim.
owl
Pied Oystercatcher
A bold black-and-white shorebird with a long orange-red bill, found probing sandy beaches and mudflats along the Australian coast.
shorebird
Northern Red-billed Hornbill
The Northern Red-billed Hornbill is a slender African savanna hornbill with spotted black-and-white upperparts, white underparts, and a long, slim red bill. It typically forages on open ground in small, active family groups.
other
Pied Falconet
A strikingly pied falconet with clean black-and-white plumage and no rufous coloring at all, found across southern China and northern Southeast Asia.
raptor
Northern Parula
One of the smallest and most compact wood-warblers, blue-gray above with a yellow throat and a distinctive olive-green back patch, tied to hanging moss or lichen for nesting.
songbird
Pigeon Guillemot
The North Pacific counterpart of the Black Guillemot, similarly sooty black with a white wing patch, but with the patch typically crossed by a dark wedge or bar.
seabird
Northern Lapwing
A distinctive Eurasian plover with iridescent green-black upperparts, a long wispy black crest, and broad, rounded wings that give it a floppy, butterfly-like flight.
shorebird
Pied Wagtail
The Pied Wagtail is a slender black-and-white songbird best known for its constantly pumping tail, with crisp black-and-white feathering that gives it a strongly contrasting, checkered appearance.
songbird
Northern Hawk-Owl
A falcon-like, day-hunting owl of the boreal forest, with a long tail, pointed wings, and boldly barred underparts, often seen perched conspicuously atop treetops scanning for prey.
owl
Pomarine Jaeger
The largest and bulkiest of the jaegers, recognized in breeding adults by broad, spoon-twisted central tail feathers and heavily barred underwing coverts.
seabird
Northern Harrier
The Northern Harrier, sometimes called the Marsh Hawk, is a slim, long-winged raptor of open grassland and marsh, known for its low, tilting flight, a distinctive white rump patch in all plumages, and an owl-like facial disc that helps it hear prey in the grass.
raptor
Plumed Guineafowl
A dark rainforest guineafowl finely speckled with white spots, identified by its forward-curling black crest plume and patch of bare blue facial skin.
gamebird
Northern Gannet
A large, brilliant white seabird with black wingtips and a warm buffy-yellow wash on the head, famous for its spectacular plunge-dives into the sea.
seabird
Plumbeous Vireo
The Plumbeous Vireo is a uniformly gray vireo of western pine and pinyon-juniper woodlands, lacking the olive-green tones seen in its eastern relative.
songbird
Northern Crested Caracara
A bold, ground-foraging raptor found from the southern United States through Central America, showing a black cap, cream barred neck, and dark body much like its southern relative the Crested Caracara.
raptor
Prothonotary Warbler
A vivid golden-yellow warbler of wooded swamps and flooded bottomland forest, one of the few warbler species that nests in tree cavities.
songbird
Northern Cassowary
A very large, flightless rainforest bird of New Guinea, covered in coarse, hair-like black plumage that contrasts with vividly colored blue-and-red bare skin on the head and neck. A single throat wattle and a tall bony casque distinguish it from its relatives.
other
Powerful Woodpecker
A large woodpecker of Andean cloud forest, closely related to the Crimson-crested and Magellanic Woodpeckers but with distinctive buffy, barred underparts rather than clean black-and-white.
woodpecker
Northern Bobwhite
A small, well-known quail of eastern and central North America, named for its whistled call, with males showing a bold white throat and eyebrow stripe against a reddish-brown, barred body.
gamebird
Prairie Falcon
A pale falcon of arid western North America, best identified in flight by a distinctive dark patch on the underwing near the body, set against otherwise pale sandy-brown plumage.
raptor
Plain Mountain Finch
A plainly plumaged high-altitude finch of the Himalayas and Central Asia, relying on streaky brown camouflage rather than bright color.
songbird
Noisy Miner
A vocal, highly social Australian honeyeater, the Noisy Miner has gray body plumage, a black cap, and a bright yellow bill and bare eye-patch, and is well known for its bold group defense of territory.
songbird
Pink-necked Green Pigeon
The Pink-necked Green Pigeon is a common Southeast Asian pigeon whose males show a soft pink throat and orange breast patch set against green plumage.
dove pigeon
Nightingale
The Nightingale is a plain brown songbird celebrated for its powerful, richly varied nighttime song, far more often heard than seen in dense thickets across Europe.
songbird
Pine Siskin
The Pine Siskin is a small, heavily streaked finch whose brown feathers show flashes of yellow in the wings and tail, and whose winter range shifts unpredictably year to year.
songbird
New Zealand Fantail
A small, active New Zealand songbird, the New Zealand Fantail is named for its broad tail, which it fans repeatedly while flitting after flying insects.
songbird