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.
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
Ruddy Turnstone
A boldly patterned, harlequin-like shorebird known for flipping stones and debris in search of food, with breeding feathers combining rufous, black, and white in a striking tortoiseshell pattern.
shorebird
Rock Kestrel
The Rock Kestrel is the resident southern African counterpart of the Common Kestrel, sharing a rufous, black-spotted back and grey head, hunting over open grassland and farmland.
raptor
Rock Bunting
The Rock Bunting is a bunting of dry, rocky hillsides across southern Europe and Asia, identified by its gray head with bold black stripes and a chestnut-streaked back.
songbird
Rivoli's Hummingbird
One of the largest hummingbirds in the United States, appearing nearly black in dim light until its violet crown and emerald throat flash brilliantly in direct sun.
hummingbird
Red-throated Caracara
A loud, glossy black rainforest raptor of the Amazon and Central America, with a bare red throat and face and a striking white belly patch, often heard before it is seen.
raptor
Fish Crow
A slender, glossy all-black corvid of coastal and riverine eastern North America, distinguished from the larger American Crow mainly by voice and slightly smaller size.
corvid
Eurasian Bullfinch
A stocky, short-billed finch with a black cap, grey back, and a rosy-pink breast in males, easily told by its bright white rump patch in flight.
songbird
Common Raven
One of the largest songbirds in the world, the Common Raven produces long, heavy, glossy-black feathers with a pronounced iridescent sheen and a distinctive wedge-shaped tail profile.
corvid
Common Pochard
The Common Pochard is a Eurasian diving duck notable for the male's warm chestnut head and contrasting black breast, set against a pale, finely patterned gray body.
waterfowl
Common Myna
A bold, adaptable brown songbird with a glossy black head and bright yellow bare skin patch around the eye, now established in cities across much of the world.
songbird
Hazel Grouse
A small, secretive forest grouse of northern Eurasia, best known for its finely patterned gray-brown plumage and a bold black-and-white throat patch in males.
gamebird
Green-breasted Mango
A widespread lowland hummingbird whose male shows a bold black stripe running down the center of otherwise green underparts, paired with a rich magenta-maroon tail.
hummingbird
California Quail
A familiar western quail known for the male's forward-drooping black head plume and scaled gray-brown body feathers, common in chaparral and suburban gardens alike.
gamebird
Brown-headed Nuthatch
The Brown-headed Nuthatch is a tiny southeastern pine specialist whose warm brown cap feathers, rather than black, set it apart from other nuthatches.
songbird
Brant
The Brant is a small, dark sea goose marked by a black head, neck, and breast broken by a fine white necklace, closely tied to coastal estuaries and tidal flats.
waterfowl
Abert's Towhee
Abert's Towhee is a warm buffy-brown desert bird tied closely to riparian mesquite thickets of the low desert Southwest, identified by its black face patch.
songbird
Bewick's Wren
A slim, long-tailed wren with a bold white eyebrow stripe, told from other wrens by its notably long tail edged in white and barred with black.
songbird
Bennett's Woodpecker
A southern African woodland woodpecker with heavy black spotting on pale underparts, closely related to other spotted African woodpeckers but favoring drier broadleaf woodland types.
woodpecker
Aplomado Falcon
The Aplomado Falcon is a striking, slender falcon of open grasslands from the southern US through Central and South America, with a distinctive black chest band and rufous belly.
raptor
Lady Amherst's Pheasant
A striking pheasant of dense mountain thickets in southwestern China, with males showing a black-and-white scaled cape, a red crest, and one of the longest tails of any pheasant.
gamebird
Demoiselle Crane
The smallest of the world's cranes, a blue-grey bird with a black head and breast set off by long, drooping white ear-tuft plumes trailing behind the eyes.
wading bird
Sage Grouse
The largest North American grouse, tied closely to sagebrush habitat, with mottled grey-brown plumage, a black belly patch, and long, spiky pointed tail feathers fanned during elaborate lek displays.
gamebird
Peregrine Falcon
A powerful, fast-flying falcon found on nearly every continent, famous for high-speed hunting stoops and identified by its slate-gray back, bold black facial 'moustache,' and finely barred underparts.
raptor