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.
Lesser Black-backed Gull
A medium-large gull of European waters with dark slate-gray to blackish mantle feathers and yellow legs, the Lesser Black-backed Gull has expanded its range widely and increasingly turns up well inland.
seabird
Great Black-backed Gull
The world's largest gull, the Great Black-backed Gull shows strikingly dark slate-black mantle feathers contrasting with a pure white head and body, and is a powerful predator as well as scavenger along North Atlantic coasts.
seabird
Grey Peacock-Pheasant
A grey-brown forest pheasant whose wing and tail feathers are dotted with shimmering blue-green eye-spots, used in display rather than the long trailing tails of many pheasant relatives.
gamebird
Grey-capped Greenfinch
A form of East Asian greenfinch showing a distinctly grey crown and nape contrasting with olive-green body plumage and yellow wing flashes.
songbird
Masked Lapwing
A large, boldly patterned Australasian plover, the Masked Lapwing is best known for its striking yellow facial wattles and sharp wing spurs, with plain brown-and-white feathers that contrast with its ornate bare-part features.
shorebird
Great Skua
A powerfully built, gull-sized seabird cloaked in dark brown plumage flecked with rufous and buff, best known for its bold white wing-flash and aggressive, piratical habits.
seabird
Little Wattlebird
The Little Wattlebird is a large, grey-brown honeyeater with a rufous wing patch and a long tail, best known for its harsh, coughing calls.
songbird
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
Black-headed Mountain Finch
A high-altitude finch of the Himalayas and Central Asian ranges, known for its blackish head and body offset by rosy-pink wing feathers.
songbird
Cockatiel
A slender, crested Australian parrot with soft grey plumage, a bold white wing patch, and, in males, a yellow face marked by a bright orange cheek spot.
parrot
Picui Ground Dove
A small, pale ground dove of open southern South American country, marked by neat blackish spots on its wing coverts and flashes of blue-grey in flight.
dove pigeon
Bourke's Parrot
Bourke's Parrot is a small Australian parrot with unusually soft, muted coloring for a parrot, combining brown-grey upperparts with a pink-washed underside and blue wing highlights.
parrot
Tropical Mockingbird
A familiar gray songbird of Central and South American open country and gardens, known for its long tail, white wing flashes, and varied vocal repertoire.
songbird
Eastern Wood-Pewee
A modestly plumaged woodland flycatcher known more for its plaintive whistled song than its subtle olive-gray coloring and faint wing bars.
songbird
Bohemian Waxwing
A sleek, crested songbird best known for the bright red, wax-like tips on its wing feathers, which give the species its name.
songbird
Ring-necked Duck
A medium diving duck with a peaked head shape and a glossy black back, best distinguished from scaup by a white vertical spur at the base of the wing rather than a grey back.
waterfowl
Mississippi Kite
The Mississippi Kite is a small, elegant grey kite with a pale head, darker grey back and wings, a solid black tail, and long pointed wings, often seen catching flying insects on the wing over open groves and parks.
raptor
Siberian Jay
A soft-plumaged jay of the northern boreal forest, easily recognized by its fluffy grey-brown body and rusty-orange wing and tail patches.
corvid
Pine Grosbeak
A large, tame northern finch with a stout bill, rosy-pink males and grey-and-yellow females, and bold white wing bars visible in flight.
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
Common Whitethroat
A small, active warbler with a bright white throat contrasting a grey head, and warm chestnut fringes on the wing feathers that add color to an otherwise modest bird.
songbird
Black Rosy-Finch
A dark, blackish-brown alpine finch of western North America's highest peaks, set off by rosy-pink wing feathering and a grey crown patch.
songbird
Rock Dove
The wild ancestor of the familiar city pigeon, typically blue-grey with bold black wing bars and a white rump, though feral descendants show enormous color variation.
dove pigeon
Chestnut-quilled Rock Pigeon
The Chestnut-quilled Rock Pigeon is an Australian escarpment specialist whose otherwise grey-brown plumage reveals bold chestnut patches on the flight feathers when it takes wing.
dove pigeon