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.
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
Northern Wheatear
The Northern Wheatear is an open-country songbird best known for its bold white rump and black-and-white tail pattern, flashed conspicuously in flight above blue-grey or buff-brown body plumage.
songbird
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
Blue-crowned Motmot
A striking green forest bird with a blue crown outlined in black and a long tail ending in distinctive racket-shaped tips. It perches quietly and is best known for slowly swinging its tail like a pendulum.
other
Great Spotted Woodpecker
The Great Spotted Woodpecker is a striking black-and-white bird with bold white wing patches, a crimson undertail, and stiff, pointed tail feathers adapted for bracing against tree trunks while excavating and drumming.
woodpecker
Franklin's Gull
A small, elegant gull of interior prairie wetlands, known for its bold white eye crescents, black hood, and one of the longest migrations of any gull, wintering as far south as the coasts of South America.
seabird
American Herring Gull
The North American counterpart to the Eurasian Herring Gull, the American Herring Gull shows very similar pale gray-and-white plumage with black wingtip spots, but with subtly darker gray tones and pinkish legs.
seabird
Whooping Crane
The tallest bird in North America, an endangered white crane with black wingtips visible in flight and a bare red crown, best known for its dramatic conservation recovery story.
wading bird
White-winged Scoter
The White-winged Scoter is the largest of the scoters, a heavy black sea duck distinguished by a bright white wing patch and a small comma-shaped white mark around the eye.
waterfowl
White-throated Robin
The White-throated Robin is a strikingly patterned Old World songbird, with breeding males showing slate-gray upperparts, orange underparts, and a bold white throat outlined in black.
songbird
Western Tanager
A colorful western North American forest songbird, the breeding male Western Tanager combines a yellow body and black wings with a striking orange-red wash across the head.
songbird
Sunda Collared Dove
A Southeast Asian island dove closely resembling the familiar Eurasian Collared Dove, but slightly smaller and darker, with the same black-and-white half-collar across the back of the neck.
dove pigeon
Squatter Pigeon
The Squatter Pigeon is a ground-dwelling Australian pigeon with a bold black-and-white facial pattern, well camouflaged in grassy woodland aside from its striking head markings.
dove pigeon
Meadow Bunting
The Meadow Bunting is an East Asian bunting of shrubby grassland and farmland edge, with breeding males showing a chestnut breast and rump set against a buff-and-black striped face.
songbird