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.
Goliath Heron
The world's largest heron, an imposing bird with a massive bill and rich chestnut head and neck feathering.
wading bird
Northern Giant Petrel
An enormous, bulky tubenose with a massive pale bill, showing mottled brown plumage that lightens on the head and neck as birds mature.
seabird
American Robin
The American Robin is a familiar thrush whose warm orange breast feathers and plain gray-brown back feathers make it one of the easiest yard birds to identify from a single dropped feather.
songbird
Common Kingfisher
A small, jewel-like bird whose brilliant structurally iridescent blue back feathers and warm orange underparts make it one of the most vividly colored birds along any river.
other
California Condor
One of the largest flying birds in the world, with enormous black flight feathers and bold white underwing patches.
raptor
Mandarin Duck
An East Asian perching duck famed for the male's uniquely upright orange 'sail' feathers on the wing, among the most distinctive single feathers of any bird in the world.
waterfowl
Emu
Australia's largest bird, the Emu has loose, hair-like feathers that grow in pairs from a single shaft, giving its plumage a shaggy, fur-like texture unlike any flying bird.
other
Tufted Titmouse
The Tufted Titmouse is a common eastern woodland bird known for its jaunty gray crest feathers and soft, plain-gray body feathers washed with rust along the flanks.
songbird
Indian Roller
A brilliant blue-winged bird of South Asian farmland, revealing dazzling blue flight feathers when it takes to the air.
other
Eurasian Spoonbill
A tall, all-white wading bird with a distinctive spoon-shaped bill, recognized by its clean white plumage and, in breeding season, a shaggy nape crest and pale yellow breast band.
wading bird
American White Pelican
A massive, brilliant white pelican with strikingly black flight feathers visible in flight, one of the largest birds in North America.
seabird
Golden Eagle
A powerful upland raptor whose dark brown plumage and golden nape feathers give it its name, with young birds showing crisp white flight-feather patches that fade with age.
raptor
Ring-necked Pheasant
A large, long-tailed gamebird whose males carry some of the most vividly iridescent body feathers and dramatically elongated tail feathers of any bird found in open countryside.
gamebird
Mute Swan
An enormous, entirely white waterbird whose large, gently curved feathers are unmistakable simply by their sheer size among freshwater birds.
waterfowl
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
Brown Kiwi
A flightless, nocturnal New Zealand bird with shaggy, hair-like feathers and a long probing bill used to find invertebrates in leaf litter.
other
Sarus Crane
The tallest of all flying birds, a pale grey Asian crane with a strikingly red bare head and upper neck, resident year-round across its wetland range.
wading bird
Indian Peafowl
One of the most recognizable birds in the world, with males displaying an iridescent blue neck and an immense fanning train of elongated feathers marked with large eyespots.
gamebird
Snowy Owl
A large, striking white owl of the high Arctic, whose feathers vary from nearly pure white in adult males to heavily barred in females and young birds, all cushioned by exceptionally dense feathering for cold protection.
owl
Iceland Gull
A pale, gentle-faced gull of the North Atlantic Arctic, the Iceland Gull shows pale gray back feathers and white to very pale wingtips, smaller and more delicately built than the similar Glaucous Gull.
seabird
Tawny Frogmouth
A nocturnal Australian bird with mottled grey-brown feathers that mimic tree bark, allowing it to remain nearly invisible while perched motionless during the day.
other
Chimney Swift
A cigar-shaped aerial bird with uniformly sooty gray-brown plumage and stiff, spine-tipped tail feathers used to brace against vertical surfaces.
other
Firecrest
The Firecrest is one of Europe's smallest songbirds, a mite of a bird whose soft, downy contour feathers are topped with a blazing orange-and-black crown stripe unlike any similarly sized species.
songbird
Wilson's Snipe
A secretive, superbly camouflaged marsh bird whose intricately patterned brown-and-buff feathers provide near-perfect concealment among wetland vegetation, with narrow outer tail feathers used to produce an eerie winnowing sound in flight.
shorebird