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.
Little Crow
The smallest of Australia's crow species, adapted to arid interior habitats and often seen in nomadic flocks.
corvid
Little Blue Heron
A heron with a striking life-history twist: pure white as a juvenile, then molting into a deep slate-purple plumage as an adult.
wading bird
Bushtit
A tiny, drab, highly social western songbird whose plain gray-brown feathers and long slender tail relative to its round body make it easy to identify despite its lack of bold markings.
songbird
Little Bittern
The Old World counterpart to the Least Bittern, a tiny, secretive marsh heron with a black cap and back in males and warmer brown tones in females.
wading bird
Burrowing Owl
A small, long-legged owl of open grassland and prairie that nests underground in burrows, with brown, white-spotted plumage above and barred underparts, often active during daylight.
owl
Little Auk
The smallest auk of the North Atlantic, a dumpy, tightly packed little bird with a black-and-white pattern and a stubby bill, breeding in immense colonies in the high Arctic.
seabird
Buffy Fish Owl
A warm buffy-brown fish-hunting owl of Southeast Asian lowland waterways, streaked with darker brown and equipped with bristly, sparsely feathered feet for gripping slippery prey.
owl
Lined Forest Falcon
A small, shy Amazonian forest-falcon closely resembling the Barred Forest Falcon but with much finer, more closely-spaced barring on its underside feathers.
raptor
Buff-fronted Owl
The Buff-fronted Owl is a small South American forest owl with a striking contrast between its dark brown upperparts and warm buffy-orange face and underparts.
owl
Lincoln's Sparrow
A finely streaked, secretive sparrow with a buffy breast band, often described as one of the most subtly elegant sparrows.
songbird
Buff-breasted Sandpiper
An upland-loving sandpiper with an unusually plain, warm buffy plumage and understated facial pattern, favoring dry short-grass fields rather than mudflats even during migration.
shorebird
Lilac-breasted Roller
One of Africa's most colorful birds, with a lilac breast, turquoise belly, and long tail streamers, often perched conspicuously on bare branches.
other
Brush Bronzewing
A ground-loving Australian pigeon named for the shimmering bronze, green, and purple spots that gleam across its folded wings.
dove pigeon
Lewis's Woodpecker
An unusually plumaged western woodpecker with an iridescent greenish-black back, dark red face, and pink-toned belly, often seen flycatching like a crow.
woodpecker
Brown Wood Owl
The Brown Wood Owl is a large, dark forest owl of South and Southeast Asia known for its rich chocolate-brown plumage and heavily barred underparts.
owl
Lesser Yellownape
A smaller relative of the Greater Yellownape, sharing its olive-green body and yellow crest but distinguished by its modest size and a small red patch on the male's head.
woodpecker
Brown-throated Sunbird
A widespread Southeast Asian sunbird with a plain brownish throat, yellow underparts, and a small iridescent purple-and-green shoulder patch.
songbird
Lesser Yellowlegs
A slender, dainty shorebird with bright yellow legs and a short, straight, needle-thin bill, smaller and less wary than its close relative.
shorebird
Brown Pelican
A large, dark-bodied pelican of coastal waters, known for its spectacular plunge-diving and a head and neck that change color dramatically with the breeding season.
seabird
Lesser Spotted Woodpecker
The Lesser Spotted Woodpecker is Europe's smallest woodpecker, its black-and-white barred back and small size distinguishing its feathers from the much larger, bolder-patched Great Spotted Woodpecker.
woodpecker
Brown-headed Cowbird
A small blackbird best known for laying its eggs in other birds' nests, with males showing a sharply contrasting brown head against a glossy black body and females entirely plain gray-brown.
songbird
Lesser Rhea
A smaller relative of the Greater Rhea found in Patagonia and the high Andes, with soft mottled brown plumage flecked with pale feather tips that give it a speckled appearance.
other
Lesser Redpoll
A tiny, heavily streaked brown finch with a small red forehead patch and black chin, males showing a pink wash across the breast, closely tied to birch, alder, and willow woodland.
songbird
Brown-capped Rosy-Finch
An alpine finch restricted to the southern Rocky Mountains, showing a plain cinnamon-brown cap that lacks the grey crown patch of related rosy-finch species.
songbird
Lesser Prairie-Chicken
A grassland grouse of the southern Great Plains, smaller and paler than its close relative the Greater Prairie-Chicken, with males displaying reddish-purple air sacs during courtship.
gamebird
Brown Bullfinch
A drab, olive-brown bullfinch of Asian hill forests that lacks the bright colors of its relatives, identified mainly by its stubby bill and subtle wing bar.
songbird
Lesser Goldfinch
The Lesser Goldfinch is a diminutive southwestern finch whose males show a black or dark green back sharply contrasting with bright yellow underparts.
songbird
Bronzed Cowbird
A stocky blackbird relative with a bronze-black sheen, red eyes, and a distinctive neck ruff, found from the southwestern United States south to Panama.
songbird
Lesser Bird-of-paradise
The Lesser Bird-of-paradise is a smaller relative of the Greater Bird-of-paradise, with a similar plumage pattern of yellow flank plumes over a maroon-brown body. Males gather at communal display trees across lowland New Guinea forest.
songbird
Least Tern
The smallest tern in North America, a diminutive, fast-flying species of sandy beaches and river sandbars, easily told by its small size, yellow bill, and white forehead patch above the black cap.
seabird
Broad-tailed Hummingbird
A mountain hummingbird of the western United States, its male showing a glowing rose-magenta throat and producing a distinctive metallic trill from its wings in flight.
hummingbird
Least Flycatcher
One of the smallest Empidonax flycatchers, notable for its bold white eye-ring and crisp wing bars against grayish-olive plumage.
songbird
Bridled Titmouse
The Bridled Titmouse is a small, crested songbird distinguished by its striking black-and-white facial pattern resembling a bridle, found in oak and pine-oak canyons of the borderlands.
songbird
Least Bittern
One of the smallest herons in the world, an inconspicuous marsh dweller with buffy wing patches that flash as it clambers deftly through dense reeds.
wading bird
Bridled Tern
A pelagic tropical tern closely related to the Sooty Tern but browner above with a distinctive white collar around the back of the neck, generally encountered further from shore than most coastal terns.
seabird
Leach's Storm-Petrel
A small, erratic-flying seabird with a forked tail and a pale bar across the upperwing, larger than most other storm-petrels in its range.
seabird
Botteri's Sparrow
Botteri's Sparrow is a plain, grassland-loving sparrow of the Southwest, known for its dry, accelerating trill delivered from grass stems.
songbird
Laysan Albatross
A North Pacific albatross with a clean white head and body contrasting against dark gray upperwings, distinguished from its dark-bodied Black-footed relative by its predominantly pale plumage.
seabird
Lawrence's Goldfinch
A small California and Baja California finch, gray-bodied with a black face on males and bright yellow wing and rump patches.
songbird
Boreal Owl
A small, secretive owl of northern boreal and subalpine conifer forests, marked by dark brown plumage boldly spotted with white and a distinctive dark-rimmed facial disc.
owl
Lark Sparrow
A boldly patterned sparrow with a striking chestnut-and-white harlequin face pattern and a rounded, white-cornered tail.
songbird
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
Lapland Longspur
The Lapland Longspur is a circumpolar Arctic-breeding songbird that winters in large flocks on open fields, showing a bold black-and-chestnut head pattern in breeding plumage.
songbird
King Vulture
A striking tropical vulture with mostly creamy white plumage, jet-black flight and tail feathers, and a vividly multicolored bare head.
raptor
Bonaparte's Gull
A dainty, tern-like gull of the North American boreal forest, notable as one of the few gulls that nests in trees, and identifiable by its crisp black hood and bright white wing wedge.
seabird
King Eider
The King Eider is a large arctic sea duck whose male combines a colorful blue-gray and pale green head with a black body and white breast, topped by an orange bill shield.
waterfowl
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
Killdeer
A loud, boldly patterned plover of open ground across North America, easily told by its double black breast bands and bright orange-buff rump revealed in flight.
shorebird