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.
Eurasian Scops Owl
The Eurasian Scops Owl is a small, migratory owl of southern Europe and parts of Asia, known for its cryptic bark-patterned plumage and a monotonous, far-carrying whistled call.
owl
Balsas Screech-Owl
A little-known small owl endemic to Mexico's Balsas River basin, with subdued grey-brown, finely vermiculated plumage suited to dry tropical forest.
owl
Long-eared Owl
A slender, well-camouflaged owl best known for its long, closely set ear tufts and richly streaked orange-brown plumage, roosting communally in dense conifer stands.
owl
Barred Forest Falcon
A secretive Neotropical raptor of the forest understory, known for its loud repeated dawn calls and short, rounded wings built for chasing prey through dense vegetation.
raptor
Puerto Rican Screech-Owl
The Puerto Rican Screech-Owl, locally known as the mucaro, is a small island-endemic owl with soft reddish-brown or grey-brown plumage and a rounded, nearly tuftless head.
owl
Southern White-faced Owl
A small grey African owl with a strikingly white facial disc rimmed in black and small ear tufts, known for dramatic threat and concealment postures.
owl
White-faced Scops Owl
The White-faced Scops Owl is an African savanna owl instantly recognized by its pale grey plumage, striking white facial disc rimmed in black, and long ear tufts, and known for a dramatic threat display.
owl
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
Northern Flicker
A large, brown-barred woodpecker best identified by the bright yellow or salmon-red shafts of its flight feathers, along with a black chest crescent and spotted underside.
woodpecker
Northern Goshawk
The Northern Goshawk is the largest accipiter, a powerful forest hawk with slate-grey upperparts, a bold white eyebrow stripe, finely barred pale underparts, and fluffy white undertail feathers, built for powerful pursuit through mature forest.
raptor
Northern Shrike
A pale, predatory songbird of the far north that winters across open habitats farther south, distinguished from the smaller Loggerhead Shrike by its larger bill and faintly barred underparts.
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
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
Bare-legged Owl
A small Cuban endemic owl notable for its bare, unfeathered legs, an unusual trait among owls that otherwise mostly have feathered tarsi.
owl
Collared Forest Falcon
A large, owl-faced Neotropical forest raptor with short rounded wings and a long barred tail, known for a dark neck collar and loud calls echoing through the forest at dawn and dusk.
raptor
Red-crowned Woodpecker
A small, widespread woodpecker of northern South America with a barred black-and-white back and a bright red crown on males.
woodpecker
Short-toed Snake Eagle
The Short-toed Snake Eagle is a pale-bellied Eurasian eagle with brown upperparts, a mottled brown breast, finely barred flight and tail feathers, and a large owl-like head adapted for scanning the ground for reptile prey.
raptor
Morepork
New Zealand's small native owl, named for its call and known to Maori as ruru, with dark brown feathers mottled with pale buff spotting and streaked underparts.
owl
Eurasian Woodcock
The larger Eurasian relative of the American Woodcock, sharing the same dead-leaf camouflage pattern and forest-floor lifestyle, but with a grayer overall tone and a distinctive slow, owl-like display flight known as roding.
shorebird
Hudsonian Godwit
A long-distance migrant godwit with deep chestnut, heavily barred breeding plumage and distinctive black underwing coverts, known for undertaking one of the longest nonstop overwater flights of any shorebird.
shorebird
Eurasian Jay
A shy woodland corvid best known for its brilliant sky-blue, black-barred wing covert feathers — among the most eye-catching and easily recognized feathers found in temperate woodland.
corvid
Common Kestrel
The Common Kestrel is a small falcon best known for its ability to hover in place while hunting, with long pointed wings and a distinctive tail that is blue-grey with a black band in males but barred rufous-brown in females.
raptor
Pel's Fishing Owl
Pel's Fishing Owl is a large, rufous-chestnut African owl specialized for hunting fish along rivers and lakes, with bare, unfeathered legs and feet unlike most owls.
owl
Brown Hawk-Owl
The Brown Hawk-Owl is a widespread Asian owl with a hawk-like, tuftless head, dark brown upperparts, and rufous-streaked white underparts.
owl