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.
Brown-capped Pygmy Woodpecker
One of the smallest South Asian woodpeckers, told from other pygmy woodpeckers mainly by its brownish, rather than blackish, crown.
woodpecker
Wood Thrush
A woodland thrush with a warm rufous-brown back brightest on the head, and a boldly spotted white breast that gives it one of the most striking feather patterns among eastern forest songbirds.
songbird
Song Thrush
A warm brown thrush with cream, finely spotted underparts and a distinctive buff-orange wash under the wing, smaller and more delicately marked than its larger thrush relatives.
songbird
Mistle Thrush
The largest and boldest-marked of the common European thrushes, with large, rounded blackish spots on cream underparts and white corners visible on the outer tail feathers.
songbird
Swainson's Thrush
A brown forest thrush best identified by its bold, buffy eye-ring and evenly colored upperparts, lacking the contrasting rufous tail of the Hermit Thrush.
songbird
Hermit Thrush
A quiet, spot-breasted thrush best known for its habit of slowly raising and lowering its rufous tail, a useful clue among the similar brown Catharus thrushes.
songbird
Eyebrowed Thrush
The Eyebrowed Thrush is an olive-brown Asian thrush marked by a bold white eyebrow stripe and an orange-buff wash across the breast, breeding in Siberian taiga and wintering in tropical Asia.
songbird
Aztec Thrush
The Aztec Thrush is a boldly patterned montane thrush of Mexican cloud forest, marked by striking white wing patches and white-tipped tail feathers against dark brown-black body plumage.
songbird
White-throated Thrush
The White-throated Thrush is a widespread Central and South American forest thrush, identified by its plain olive-brown body and a contrasting white throat marked with dark streaking.
songbird
Varied Thrush
A strikingly patterned thrush of Pacific Northwest forests, combining a slate-gray back with burnt-orange underparts, eyebrow stripe, and wing bars, plus a bold dark breast band in males.
songbird
Dusky Thrush
The Dusky Thrush is a boldly marked Siberian thrush with heavily scaled blackish-and-white underparts and a bright rufous wing patch, wintering across East Asia and occasionally reaching North America.
songbird
Bicknell's Thrush
A rare, high-elevation thrush closely resembling the Gray-cheeked Thrush, separated mainly by subtle tail color, bill pattern, and habitat.
songbird
Clay-colored Thrush
A plain, uniformly brown thrush of Middle America, closely related to the American Robin but lacking its bright orange breast, identified by its overall buffy-brown tone and pale bill.
songbird
Gray-cheeked Thrush
A subdued, cold-toned thrush of the far north, distinguished from similar species mainly by its plain grayish face and weak or absent eye-ring.
songbird
Snowy-browed Owl
This tiny Asian pygmy owl is known for its compact, heavily spotted brown plumage and a pair of dark false eye-spots on the nape that help confuse predators.
owl
Turquoise-browed Motmot
This Central American motmot is best known for its bright turquoise eyebrow stripe and long tail ending in bare-shafted rackets that it swings like a pendulum.
other
Yellow-browed Bunting
A Siberian-breeding bunting recognized by its yellow-tinged eyebrow stripe fading to white toward the back of the head.
songbird
Black-browed Albatross
One of the most widespread and abundant albatrosses, readily identified by a bold dark stripe through the eye that gives it a permanently stern, 'browed' expression.
seabird
Meyer's Parrot
Meyer's Parrot is a small, subtly colored African parrot with a brownish-grey body offset by a turquoise belly and yellow shoulder patches.
parrot
Tawny Eagle
A variably colored eagle of Africa's open plains, ranging from pale sandy-tawny to dark blackish-brown among individuals, generally lacking the bold markings seen in many other eagles.
raptor
Boreal Chickadee
The Boreal Chickadee is a hardy northern chickadee with a dull brown cap and rusty flanks, adapted to survive harsh winters deep in the spruce-fir forests of the far north.
songbird
California Towhee
The California Towhee is a large, plain brown sparrow relative common in West Coast gardens and chaparral, best known for its rufous undertail and persistent chip calls.
songbird
Arizona Woodpecker
A woodpecker of southwestern oak canyons notable for its plain brown back, unlike the black-and-white barred pattern of most related species.
woodpecker
Tawny Owl
A stocky woodland owl whose bark-patterned, silent-edged feathers make it one of the most cryptically camouflaged birds in the forest.
owl