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.
Clark's Nutcracker
A pale gray, crow-like bird of high mountain pine forests, best known for storing thousands of pine seeds each autumn to survive winter.
corvid
Mauritius Kestrel
The Mauritius Kestrel is a small, endemic island falcon famed as a major conservation success story, having recovered from a population of just a handful of individuals to a stable population in native forest habitat.
raptor
Rock Sandpiper
The Pacific counterpart of the Purple Sandpiper, this stocky, dark shorebird forages on wave-swept rocky shores from Alaska south along the Pacific coast, its feathers showing the same somber, storm-suited coloring.
shorebird
Ring Ouzel
A blackbird relative of upland Europe, told from the Eurasian Blackbird by its bold white crescent across the breast and pale-scaled wing feathers.
songbird
Carib Grackle
A small, glossy grackle common around towns and farmland in the southern Caribbean and northern South America, recognized by its keel-shaped tail and noisy flocking habits.
songbird
Western Kingbird
A pale gray-headed flycatcher with a yellow belly, often seen perched on wires in open country, told by white edges on its blackish tail.
songbird
Green Sandpiper
A dark, almost blackish sandpiper with a contrasting white rump and blackish underwing, often flushed abruptly from small secluded pools.
shorebird
Zone-tailed Hawk
A blackish hawk that closely mimics the flight silhouette and dark coloring of the Turkey Vulture, distinguished mainly by its banded tail feathers.
raptor
Blue Ground Dove
A small, strikingly dimorphic dove-pale powder-blue in males, warm rufous-brown in females-both patterned with bold blackish spots across the wings.
dove pigeon
Hooded Crane
A small, dark East Asian crane with a white head and upper neck resembling a hood, contrasting sharply with its otherwise slate-grey to blackish body.
wading bird
Grey Crowned Night Heron
A secretive, forest-dwelling night heron of South and Southeast Asia, cloaked in warm chestnut-rufous plumage with a blackish crown and short nape crest.
wading bird
Giant Cowbird
The largest of the cowbirds, a big-bodied blackbird relative that parasitizes the colonial nests of oropendolas and caciques throughout Central and South America.
songbird
Brown-capped Pygmy Woodpecker
One of the smallest South Asian woodpeckers, told from other pygmy woodpeckers mainly by its brownish, rather than blackish, crown.
woodpecker
Long-tailed Meadowlark
A southern South American grassland songbird whose males flash a brilliant scarlet throat and breast against blackish upperparts.
songbird
Picui Ground Dove
A small, pale ground dove of open southern South American country, marked by neat blackish spots on its wing coverts and flashes of blue-grey in flight.
dove pigeon
Shiny Cowbird
A slender, glossy blackbird relative widespread across South America and the Caribbean, notable for its uniform purplish-blue sheen and habit of parasitizing other birds' nests.
songbird
Scarlet-chested Sunbird
A dark African sunbird whose males show a striking scarlet breast patch bordered above by an iridescent green throat and crown, set against otherwise blackish-brown plumage.
songbird
Velvet-purple Coronet
A richly colored cloud-forest hummingbird with velvety blackish-purple plumage, a glittering violet-blue crown, and bright white patches visible on the underwing in flight.
hummingbird
Tawny Eagle
A variably colored eagle of Africa's open plains, ranging from pale sandy-tawny to dark blackish-brown among individuals, generally lacking the bold markings seen in many other eagles.
raptor
Common Grackle
A large, iridescent blackbird recognized by its long, keel-shaped tail held in a distinctive V-shaped trough during flight and its bronze or purple sheen.
songbird
Dusky Thrush
The Dusky Thrush is a boldly marked Siberian thrush with heavily scaled blackish-and-white underparts and a bright rufous wing patch, wintering across East Asia and occasionally reaching North America.
songbird
Stygian Owl
The Stygian Owl is a dark, dramatically plumaged owl of Latin America and the Caribbean, named for its blackish-brown feathers and prominent, closely-set ear tufts.
owl
Steller's Sea Eagle
One of the largest and heaviest eagles alive, easily identified by bold white patches on the shoulders and thighs set against otherwise blackish-brown plumage.
raptor
Mistle Thrush
The largest and boldest-marked of the common European thrushes, with large, rounded blackish spots on cream underparts and white corners visible on the outer tail feathers.
songbird