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.
Knob-billed Duck
A large, glossy black-and-white duck of tropical wetlands, best known for the fleshy black knob or comb that swells atop the breeding male's bill.
waterfowl
Yellow-browed Bunting
A Siberian-breeding bunting recognized by its yellow-tinged eyebrow stripe fading to white toward the back of the head.
songbird
Royal Spoonbill
A white spoonbill of Australasia known for the long, trailing white crest plumes that breeding adults grow from the back of the head.
wading bird
Red-billed Quelea
A small African weaver famous for forming the largest flocks of any wild bird, with breeding males sporting a bold black or white facial mask and a bright red bill.
songbird
Common Scoter
The Common Scoter is the Eurasian counterpart of the Black Scoter, a sea duck whose breeding male is entirely black apart from a yellow-orange patch along the ridge of the bill.
waterfowl
Cerulean Warbler
One of the smallest wood-warblers, with sky-blue upperparts in the male, breeding high in mature deciduous forest canopy of eastern North America.
songbird
American Goldfinch
The American Goldfinch is famous for males turning vivid lemon-yellow with black wings and cap in breeding season, then molting to a dull olive plumage the rest of the year.
songbird
Southern Red Bishop
A small African weaver whose breeding males turn brilliant scarlet and black, one of the most vividly colored birds of Africa's wetland grasses.
songbird
Sabine's Gull
A strikingly patterned Arctic-breeding gull whose bold black, white, and gray tricolored wing pattern and forked tail make it one of the most distinctive gulls in flight.
seabird
Common Ringed Plover
The Eurasian counterpart to the Semipalmated Plover, a small brown-and-white plover with a single black breast band, breeding across the Arctic and temperate coasts of the Old World.
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
Black Scoter
The Black Scoter is the only scoter whose breeding male shows an entirely black plumage with no white markings at all, set off by a bright orange-yellow knob at the base of the bill.
waterfowl
Spotless Starling
A glossy black starling of Iberia and northwest Africa closely resembling the Common Starling but lacking the pale spangling in breeding plumage.
songbird
Scarlet Tanager
A jewel of the eastern deciduous forest canopy, the breeding male Scarlet Tanager combines brilliant scarlet body plumage with jet-black wings and tail.
songbird
Royal Tern
One of the largest terns, approaching gull-like proportions, with a heavy orange bill and a shaggy black crest that is often reduced to a ragged crown patch outside the breeding season.
seabird
Black Tern
A distinctive marsh tern that turns almost entirely sooty-black during the breeding season, a striking departure from the pale gray-and-white pattern typical of most terns.
seabird
Atlantic Puffin
A small, tuxedo-patterned seabird famous for its large, brightly colored bill in the breeding season, spending most of the year far out at sea before returning to nest on coastal cliffs and islands.
seabird
Little Auk
The smallest auk of the North Atlantic, a dumpy, tightly packed little bird with a black-and-white pattern and a stubby bill, breeding in immense colonies in the high Arctic.
seabird
Pine Bunting
The Pine Bunting is a Siberian relative of the Yellowhammer, with breeding males showing a striking white head pattern and chestnut breast band instead of yellow tones.
songbird
Horned Puffin
The North Pacific counterpart to the Atlantic Puffin, similarly patterned in black and white but named for the small fleshy "horn" of skin above each eye in breeding adults.
seabird
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
European Stonechat
The European Stonechat is a small, compact songbird whose breeding males show a jet-black head and orange-chestnut breast set off by white neck patches, against a mottled brown back.
songbird
Tufted Puffin
The largest of the puffins, distinguished from its black-and-white relatives by an almost entirely dark body plumage set off by long, pale yellow head plumes in breeding adults.
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