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.
Orange-breasted Falcon
The Orange-breasted Falcon is a powerful, rare Neotropical falcon resembling a large Bat Falcon, with a black hood, a broad orange-buff breast band, and a boldly white-barred black belly.
raptor
Palm-nut Vulture
An unusual, mostly white African vulture closely tied to oil palm groves and coastal wetlands, with black flight feathers and a partly black tail breaking up its pale plumage.
raptor
Muscovy Duck
A large, heavily built duck; wild birds are glossy black-green with white wing patches, while the widely domesticated and feral forms show highly variable pied black-and-white plumage.
waterfowl
Cape Gannet
A large white seabird closely related to the Northern Gannet, distinguished by a black tail and a black band crossing the secondary flight feathers.
seabird
Eurasian Siskin
A small, active finch of conifer and alder woodland, with males showing a black cap on a yellow-green head and both sexes displaying bold black-and-yellow wing bars and a forked tail with yellow at the base.
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
Red-crowned Crane
One of the rarest cranes in the world, a large white East Asian crane with a black neck, a bare red crown, and elongated black secondary feathers that form a false 'tail' over its true white tail.
wading bird
Crowned Eagle
The Crowned Eagle is a powerful African forest eagle with rich rufous underparts boldly barred in black, a strongly banded black-and-white tail, and a small crest, all adaptations for hunting beneath a dense forest canopy.
raptor
Sandwich Tern
A slender, crested tern of sandy coastlines, easily recognized by its shaggy black crest and long, slim black bill with a distinctive yellow tip.
seabird
Hooded Crow
The grey-and-black counterpart of the Carrion Crow, easily identified by pale ash-grey body feathers contrasting sharply with a black head, wings, and tail.
corvid
Masked Booby
The largest booby species, with a clean white body set off by black flight feathers, a black tail, and a dark facial mask around the bill.
seabird
Chukar
A rocky-hillside partridge known for the sharp black necklace stripe framing its pale throat and the bold black-and-chestnut bars along its flanks.
gamebird
Sand Martin
The Sand Martin is the smallest European swallow-relative, with plain sandy-brown upperpart feathers, white underparts, and a distinctive brown breast band.
songbird
Sacred Ibis
A large white wading bird with a bare black head and curved black bill, historically significant in ancient Egyptian culture and common across African wetlands today.
wading bird
Bar-tailed Godwit
A high-Arctic-breeding godwit renowned for extraordinary nonstop transoceanic migratory flights, showing a finely barred tail and rich brick-red breeding underparts quite different from the bold black tail of the related Black-tailed Godwit.
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
Ornate Hawk-Eagle
A powerful Neotropical forest raptor with a bold black crest, rufous cheeks and neck, and crisp black-and-white barring across the underparts, built for hunting within the forest canopy.
raptor
Bat Falcon
The Bat Falcon is a small, dashing falcon of Neotropical forests, black above with a rufous throat patch and a boldly black-and-white barred belly, often hunting bats and swifts at dusk.
raptor
Masked Duck
A small, secretive stiff-tailed duck; breeding males are rich cinnamon densely marked with black spots and a black facial mask, while females are duller brown with striped faces.
waterfowl
European Goldfinch
A strikingly patterned finch with a red face, black-and-white head markings, warm buff-brown body, and a vivid golden-yellow wing bar crossing otherwise black wings.
songbird
Reeves's Pheasant
A pheasant of central China renowned for having the longest tail feathers of any bird in its family, combined with golden, black-scaled body plumage and a bold black-and-white head pattern.
gamebird
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
California Condor
One of the largest flying birds in the world, with enormous black flight feathers and bold white underwing patches.
raptor
Northwestern Crow
A compact, all-black crow of the Pacific Northwest coast that is often seen foraging along tidelines and beaches.
corvid