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.
Cape Bunting
A southern African bunting with a black-and-white striped face and a warm chestnut wing panel, favoring rocky, hilly terrain.
songbird
Elegant Tern
A slender, crested Pacific coast tern with a notably long, thin, slightly drooping orange-yellow bill, intermediate in size and appearance between the Royal and Sandwich Terns.
seabird
Cape Canary
A common southern African finch showing a bright yellow face and underparts set off by a distinctive pale gray collar across the nape.
songbird
Egyptian Vulture
The smallest and most lightly built Old World vulture, with creamy-white body feathers, black flight feathers, and a distinctive wedge-shaped tail.
raptor
Canvasback
A large diving duck with a distinctive sloping forehead profile, whose male shows a deep chestnut-red head and black breast set against a strikingly pale, almost white body.
waterfowl
Edwards's Pheasant
A rare, glossy dark blue-black pheasant native to the forests of central Vietnam, marked by a short white crest and vivid red facial skin.
gamebird
Campo Flicker
A grassland flicker of central South America with a bold white face and black chest patch, usually seen foraging on open ground rather than tree trunks.
woodpecker
Eclectus Parrot
A parrot with extreme visual differences between the sexes: males are bright emerald green, while females are bright red with a blue-purple breast and belly.
parrot
California Scrub-Jay
A crestless, blue-and-gray jay of California's oak woodlands and gardens, showing a blue necklace across a whitish throat and gray-brown back.
corvid
Eastern Yellow Robin
The Eastern Yellow Robin is a small Australian robin with a grey back, bright yellow underparts, and an upright, alert perching posture.
songbird
California Condor
One of the largest flying birds in the world, with enormous black flight feathers and bold white underwing patches, and a critically endangered population sustained by intensive conservation efforts.
raptor
Eastern Whipbird
The Eastern Whipbird is a skulking, olive-green Australian songbird best known for its explosive, whip-crack call rather than for being easily seen.
songbird
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
Eared Dove
One of South America's most abundant doves, recognized by a small dark crescent below the eye and neat black spots scattered across its warm pinkish-brown wings.
dove pigeon
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
Dwarf Cassowary
The smallest of the three cassowary species, this flightless New Guinea rainforest bird has coarse, hair-like black plumage and blue bare skin on the face and neck. It lacks the throat wattles of its larger relatives and has a low, modest casque.
other
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
Dusky Turtle Dove
A darkly plumaged highland dove of East Africa's mountains, notably duskier overall than lowland turtle doves, with a black patch on the back of the neck.
dove pigeon
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
Dusky-headed Conure
A slender green Amazonian parakeet distinguished by its dusky grey-brown head and pale bare eye-ring.
parrot
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
Dusky Grouse
A large montane grouse of the interior Rocky Mountains, males dark slate-grey overall with a fanned dark tail and inflatable yellow-orange neck sacs used in display.
gamebird
Brush Bronzewing
A ground-loving Australian pigeon named for the shimmering bronze, green, and purple spots that gleam across its folded wings.
dove pigeon
Double-crested Cormorant
A widespread, glossy black waterbird with a bright orange-yellow throat patch, often seen perched with wings spread to dry after diving.
seabird
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
Curve-billed Thrasher
A grayish-brown desert songbird with a long, strongly down-curved bill, well adapted to foraging among cactus and thorny scrub of the American Southwest.
songbird
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
Curlew Sandpiper
A slender, long-legged sandpiper with a gently down-curved bill, best distinguished in the field and in shed feathers by its bright white rump, which flashes clearly in flight.
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
Cuban Crow
A vocal, all-black crow endemic to Cuba and a few surrounding islands, known for its varied and unusual calls.
corvid
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
Cryptic Forest Falcon
A recently described forest-falcon so visually similar to its relatives that it was only distinguished by its distinct voice - its feathers are essentially indistinguishable from those of the Barred Forest Falcon complex.
raptor
Brown Falcon
The Brown Falcon is a common and highly variable Australian falcon with broader, more buzzard-like proportions than most falcons, ranging in tone from dark chocolate-brown to pale cream morphs.
raptor
Crimson Rosella
The Crimson Rosella is a richly colored Australian parrot, deep red overall with contrasting blue cheeks, wings, and tail, and a black-scalloped back.
parrot
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
Crimson-crested Woodpecker
A striking South American woodpecker whose entirely crimson head and crest stand out sharply against its black-and-white barred body.
woodpecker
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
Crimson-bellied Conure
A small Amazonian conure with green upperparts and a grey breast that give way to a strikingly deep crimson-red patch across the lower belly.
parrot
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
Cretzschmar's Bunting
Cretzschmar's Bunting is a bunting of dry, rocky Mediterranean and Middle Eastern hillsides, with breeding males showing a blue-gray head, orange throat, and chestnut-streaked back.
songbird
Brolga
Australia's iconic crane, grey overall with a bare red band of skin around the head and a distinctive fold of skin (dewlap) under the chin, well known for its elaborate dancing displays.
wading bird
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
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
Crested Pigeon
A common Australian pigeon topped with a slender, upright black crest and marked by bold iridescent green-and-purple patches across the folded wing.
dove pigeon
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
Crested Partridge
A small Southeast Asian rainforest partridge whose male sports a bright red, bushy, hair-like crest atop glossy dark-green body plumage, while the female glows a striking grass-green.
gamebird
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
Crested Owl
A dark, richly colored Neotropical rainforest owl with unusually long, prominent whitish ear-tuft feathers and a bold white eyebrow stripe against otherwise dark brown plumage.
owl