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.
Northern Grey-headed Woodpecker
A West and Central African woodpecker with a grey head contrasting against an olive-green back, part of a wider grey-headed woodpecker complex found across the continent.
woodpecker
Northern Carmine Bee-eater
A brilliant pink bee-eater of the African Sahel, closely resembling its southern counterpart but with a green crown rather than blue.
other
Northern Saw-whet Owl
One of the smallest owls in North America, with soft reddish-brown, white-streaked plumage, no ear tufts, and a distinctive whitish facial disc bordered by a dark rim.
owl
Northern Red-billed Hornbill
The Northern Red-billed Hornbill is a slender African savanna hornbill with spotted black-and-white upperparts, white underparts, and a long, slim red bill. It typically forages on open ground in small, active family groups.
other
Common Black Hawk
A stocky, broad-winged hawk of wooded streams and mangroves, easily told from other dark raptors by its nearly all-black plumage crossed by a single wide white tail band.
raptor
Common Wood Pigeon
Europe's largest common pigeon, easily identified by its soft blue-grey feathers, a bold white wing bar, and white neck patches absent in smaller relatives.
dove pigeon
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
Common Hill Myna
A glossy black forest myna of South and Southeast Asia, recognized by bright yellow fleshy wattles on the head and a bold white wing patch visible in flight.
songbird
Common Ground Dove
One of the smallest doves in North America, a diminutive, scaly-patterned bird that flushes from the ground to reveal a flash of rufous in the wings.
dove pigeon
Common Peafowl Spalding
An aviculture strain blending Green and Indian Peafowl ancestry, showing iridescent scaled neck feathers, a tall crest, and a long ornamental train that draws on the coloring of both parent lines.
gamebird
Common Green Magpie
A vividly green forest corvid with a bold black mask and chestnut wing patch, whose color can fade toward blue in old feathers.
corvid
Common Green Pigeon
The Common Green Pigeon is a widespread South Asian pigeon combining yellowish-green plumage with a grey mantle and bright yellow legs.
dove pigeon
Red-necked Phalarope
A tiny, tundra-nesting phalarope that spends most of the year far out at sea, the Red-necked Phalarope shows a bold chestnut neck patch in breeding females and streaked dark-and-buff upperparts with a distinct white wing stripe.
shorebird
Bullock's Oriole
The western counterpart to the Baltimore Oriole, identified by its orange cheeks, black eyeline and throat stripe, and an unusually large white wing patch.
songbird
Pine Grosbeak
A large, tame northern finch with a stout bill, rosy-pink males and grey-and-yellow females, and bold white wing bars visible in flight.
songbird
Baltimore Oriole
A vividly colored eastern songbird whose adult males show a striking contrast of flame-orange and black feathers, best known for weaving an elaborate hanging nest.
songbird
Abyssinian Ground Hornbill
The Abyssinian Ground Hornbill is a large, mostly terrestrial hornbill of Sub-Saharan African savanna north of the equator, similar in shape to its southern counterpart but distinguished by its bare blue facial and throat skin. It walks in small groups across open country hunting for prey.
other
Eurasian Treecreeper
The Eurasian Treecreeper has cryptic, bark-patterned upperpart feathers that provide near-perfect camouflage against tree trunks, paired with stiff, pointed tail feathers that brace it as it spirals up trees.
songbird
Eurasian Teal
The Old World form of the common teal, closely related to the North American Green-winged Teal, told apart chiefly by a horizontal white scapular stripe rather than a vertical flank stripe.
waterfowl
Eurasian Oystercatcher
A large, boldly pied shorebird of European and Asian coastlines, black above and white below, with a striking white wing bar and rump revealed in flight.
shorebird
Eurasian Curlew
Europe and Asia's largest curlew, with a long downcurved bill and streaky grayish-brown plumage, best known for its evocative bubbling call across moorlands and mudflats.
shorebird
Eurasian Blackbird
A familiar thrush of European gardens and woodland, with males entirely glossy black offset by a bright yellow-orange bill, while females are a more subdued dark brown.
songbird
Brown Noddy
A dark, tropical seabird related to terns, easily told by its uniform chocolate-brown plumage set off by a pale gray-white cap and a long, wedge-shaped tail.
seabird
American Crow
A large, all-black corvid found nearly continent-wide, whose sturdy glossy-black feathers with a slight iridescent sheen are among the most commonly found large feathers in North America.
corvid