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.
Brown Jay
A large, plain brown jay of Mexico and Central America, lacking bright colors but notable for its size, loud calls, and whitish tail tip.
corvid
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
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
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
Brown Hawk-Owl
The Brown Hawk-Owl is a widespread Asian owl with a hawk-like, tuftless head, dark brown upperparts, and rufous-streaked white underparts.
owl
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
Brown-fronted Woodpecker
A small Himalayan woodpecker with a brown forehead patch and finely barred black-and-white back, sharing similarities with related pied woodpeckers at lower elevations.
woodpecker
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
Brown Fish Owl
A large brown fish-hunting owl of South and Southeast Asian waterways, streaked brown overall, with feathers and bare, bristly lower legs adapted for hunting at the water's edge.
owl
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
Brown Creeper
A tree-trunk specialist whose mottled brown and buff feathers mimic bark texture perfectly, paired with stiff, pointed tail feathers that brace against trunks like a woodpecker's.
songbird
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
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
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
Brown Booby
A widespread tropical seabird with a sharp, clean line dividing its dark chocolate-brown chest and upperparts from bright white underparts.
seabird
Brush Bronzewing
A ground-loving Australian pigeon named for the shimmering bronze, green, and purple spots that gleam across its folded wings.
dove pigeon
Bronzy Sunbird
A large East African sunbird whose breeding males show iridescent bronzy-green plumage with purple highlights and long tail streamers, contrasting with the much plainer, streaked females.
songbird
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
Broad-winged Hawk
The Broad-winged Hawk is a compact, forest-nesting buteo with rufous-barred underparts and a short tail marked by bold, wide black-and-white bands, famous for gathering in enormous migrating flocks called 'kettles.'
raptor
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
Broad-billed Hummingbird
A desert-canyon hummingbird with a bright coral-red, black-tipped bill and a male plumage that glows blue-green from throat to breast.
hummingbird
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
Brimstone Canary
A robust, brightly colored African canary showing rich sulfur-yellow underparts and olive-green upperparts, with a notably heavy bill.
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
Brewer's Sparrow
A plain, pale sparrow closely tied to sagebrush habitat, known for its unusually long, complex, canary-like song.
songbird
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
Brewer's Blackbird
Brewer's Blackbird is a widespread, adaptable blackbird whose males show glossy black plumage with purple and green iridescence, common in open fields, parking lots, and agricultural areas across the West.
songbird
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
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
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
Brambling
A northern finch closely related to the Chaffinch, showing warm orange breast and shoulder feathers, a mottled black-and-orange back, and a bold white rump patch that flashes distinctively in flight.
songbird
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
Brahminy Kite
A handsome coastal raptor with a crisp white head and breast set against warm chestnut wings and body, common along tropical shorelines of Asia and Australia.
raptor
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
Bourke's Parrot
Bourke's Parrot is a small Australian parrot with unusually soft, muted coloring for a parrot, combining brown-grey upperparts with a pink-washed underside and blue wing highlights.
parrot
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
Booted Racket-tail
A tiny Andean hummingbird best known for its puffy white leg feathers and, in males, a pair of long bare tail shafts ending in small dark paddle-shaped tips.
hummingbird
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
Bonelli's Eagle
An agile, cliff-nesting eagle whose pale, finely streaked underparts and boldly banded grey tail distinguish it from the darker, more uniformly plumaged eagles sharing its range.
raptor
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
Bobolink
A grassland songbird famous for the breeding male's striking 'backward tuxedo' pattern of black underparts and pale back, and for its exceptionally long migration to South America.
songbird
Botteri's Sparrow
Botteri's Sparrow is a plain, grassland-loving sparrow of the Southwest, known for its dry, accelerating trill delivered from grass stems.
songbird
Boat-tailed Grackle
The Boat-tailed Grackle is a large coastal grackle with a long, distinctively keeled tail, males glossy black with iridescence and females a much smaller warm brown, common along Atlantic and Gulf Coast marshes.
songbird
Bornean Peacock-pheasant
A little-known peacock-pheasant endemic to Borneo's lowland rainforest, patterned with rows of glossy blue-green eyespots across a rich chestnut-brown plumage.
gamebird
Boat-billed Heron
An unmistakable heron of tropical American wetlands, best known for its unusually broad, scoop-shaped bill and large, night-adapted eyes.
wading bird
Boreal Owl
A small, secretive owl of northern boreal and subalpine conifer forests, marked by dark brown plumage boldly spotted with white and a distinctive dark-rimmed facial disc.
owl
Bluethroat
The Bluethroat is a small, ground-dwelling songbird whose breeding males display a strikingly iridescent blue-and-chestnut throat patch, set off by warm rufous tail feathers.
songbird
Boreal Chickadee
The Boreal Chickadee is a hardy northern chickadee with a dull brown cap and rusty flanks, adapted to survive harsh winters deep in the spruce-fir forests of the far north.
songbird