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.
Carolina Wren
A chunky, warm rufous wren of southeastern thickets whose barred tail feathers and loud, ringing song make it one of the most conspicuous small birds around brushy yards.
songbird
Eurasian Pygmy-Owl
Europe's smallest owl, a boreal forest specialist that hunts small birds and rodents largely by day. Its feathers are gray-brown to rufous with crisp white spotting and a narrowly barred tail.
owl
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
Blue Crane
South Africa's national bird, a pale blue-grey crane with unusually long, trailing wing-tip feathers that can nearly brush the ground when the bird is standing.
wading bird
Common Cuckoo
A slim, hawk-mimicking bird whose barred underparts and pointed wings closely resemble a small sparrowhawk, an example of remarkable plumage convergence in nature.
other
Goliath Heron
The world's largest heron, an imposing bird with a massive bill and rich chestnut head and neck feathering.
wading bird
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
Crested Tit
The Crested Tit is a small European woodland bird easily recognized by its pointed, black-and-white speckled crest, a feature unique among the continent's tits.
songbird
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
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
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
Red-billed Quelea
A small African weaver famous for forming the largest flocks of any wild bird, with breeding males sporting a bold black or white facial mask and a bright red bill.
songbird
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
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
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
Indian Roller
A brilliant blue-winged bird of South Asian farmland, revealing dazzling blue flight feathers when it takes to the air.
other
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
Paradise Tanager
One of the most vividly colored songbirds in the world, the Paradise Tanager combines a turquoise-green head, black back, red rump, and purplish-blue throat in a single small canopy bird.
songbird
Mute Swan
An enormous, entirely white waterbird whose large, gently curved feathers are unmistakable simply by their sheer size among freshwater birds.
waterfowl
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
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
Hamerkop
A small brown African wading bird named for its hammer-shaped head, formed by a thick bill and a backward-pointing crest, best known for building enormous domed stick nests.
wading bird
Southern Red Bishop
A small African weaver whose breeding males turn brilliant scarlet and black, one of the most vividly colored birds of Africa's wetland grasses.
songbird
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