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.
Rhinoceros Auklet
A dusky, medium-sized auk related to the puffins, named for the small horn-like projection that grows at the base of the bill in breeding adults.
seabird
Costa's Hummingbird
A desert hummingbird whose male sports a brilliant violet-purple throat patch that flares outward into elongated points like a mustache.
hummingbird
Baird's Sparrow
An elusive prairie sparrow with a warm ochre crown stripe and fine necklace-like streaking, tied closely to intact native grassland.
songbird
Senegal Parrot
The Senegal Parrot is a small, stocky West African parrot with a grey head, green back, and a bright yellow-orange belly marking shaped like a V.
parrot
Bufflehead
The Bufflehead is a tiny, big-headed diving duck whose male sports a bold white bonnet-like patch across an iridescent black-green head.
waterfowl
Scaled Dove
A small South American dove whose breast and neck feathers carry dark, crescent-shaped edges that overlap like fish scales.
dove pigeon
Spotted Dove
A common Asian dove instantly recognized by the broad black collar on its hindneck, which is finely spotted with white like a string of pearls.
dove pigeon
Ovenbird
A ground-dwelling warbler that looks more like a small thrush, with heavily streaked underparts and a bold orange crown stripe bordered in black.
songbird
Kentucky Warbler
A bright yellow, olive-backed warbler of the forest floor, marked by bold black stripes framing the face like sideburns and a partial spectacle.
songbird
European Storm-Petrel
One of the smallest seabirds in the world, sooty black overall with a white rump patch, fluttering like a large bat low over the waves.
seabird
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
Grey Junglefowl
An Indian forest gamebird whose males have neck hackle feathers tipped with an unusual glassy, wax-like yellow spangle unlike any other bird.
gamebird
Great Argus
A pheasant of Southeast Asian rainforest famous for the male's extraordinarily elongated wing feathers, patterned with large eye-like spots and displayed in a dramatic fan during courtship.
gamebird
Sulphur-crested Cockatoo
A large all-white cockatoo with a tall sulphur-yellow crest that fans forward when the bird is alert or excited.
parrot
Purple Heron
A slim, secretive relative of the Grey Heron with rich chestnut neck feathering and a habit of hiding among tall reeds.
wading bird
Olive-sided Flycatcher
A large-headed, big-chested flycatcher whose dark olive-gray flanks and white central stripe create a distinctive vest-like appearance.
songbird
Laughing Dove
A small, warm pinkish-cinnamon dove named for its bubbling, laugh-like coo, with a distinctive speckled black patch across the upper breast.
dove pigeon
Hutton's Vireo
Hutton's Vireo is a stocky, kinglet-like resident of Pacific coast evergreen woodlands, identified by its bold broken eyering and white wing bars.
songbird
Common Greenshank
A tall, pale gray shorebird with greenish legs and a long, slightly upturned bill, the Old World counterpart to the yellowlegs.
shorebird
Mottled Duck
A non-migratory dabbling duck of Gulf Coast and Florida wetlands that looks much like a female Mallard, best told apart by its plain, unstreaked pale throat.
waterfowl
Western Meadowlark
A grassland songbird nearly identical to the Eastern Meadowlark, with pale mottled upperparts, a yellow breast marked by a black V, and a rich, gurgling flute-like song.
songbird
Northern Lapwing
A distinctive Eurasian plover with iridescent green-black upperparts, a long wispy black crest, and broad, rounded wings that give it a floppy, butterfly-like flight.
shorebird
New Zealand Bellbird
The New Zealand Bellbird is an olive-green honeyeater-relative renowned for its clear, bell-like song, common in native forest across New Zealand.
songbird
Little Gull
The smallest gull in the world, a delicate Eurasian species with rounded wings, a buoyant tern-like flight, and strikingly dark underwings that flash as it wheels over the water.
seabird