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.
Whistling Kite
A common, pale kite of Australia and New Guinea best known for its far-carrying whistled call, with buff-brown body feathers contrasting against darker flight feathers in flight.
raptor
Golden Eagle
A powerful upland raptor whose dark brown plumage and golden nape feathers give it its name, with young birds showing crisp white flight-feather patches that fade with age.
raptor
Mandarin Duck
An East Asian perching duck famed for the male's uniquely upright orange 'sail' feathers on the wing, among the most distinctive single feathers of any bird in the world.
waterfowl
Eastern Bluebird
A small, vividly colored thrush whose blue feathers are produced by feather structure rather than pigment, giving them a shifting brightness depending on the angle of light.
songbird
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
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
Tufted Titmouse
The Tufted Titmouse is a common eastern woodland bird known for its jaunty gray crest feathers and soft, plain-gray body feathers washed with rust along the flanks.
songbird
Golden-crowned Kinglet
A tiny, hyperactive conifer specialist named for its glowing crown patch, with soft olive body feathers and delicately edged flight feathers scaled to its diminutive size.
songbird
Common Buzzard
The Common Buzzard is a medium-large soaring raptor with broad, fingered wing feathers and a highly variable brown plumage, ranging from very dark to pale, that makes each individual's feathers somewhat distinct.
raptor
Eurasian Nuthatch
The Eurasian Nuthatch is a stocky, tree-climbing songbird with slate-blue upperpart feathers and warm buff-orange underparts, plus short, stiff tail feathers adapted for headfirst descents down tree trunks.
songbird
Rook
A glossy, all-black farmland corvid recognized in life by its bare greyish face skin and shaggy thigh feathering, and in feather form by its strong purple-blue sheen.
corvid
Common Snipe
The Eurasian counterpart of Wilson's Snipe, sharing the same superb camouflage pattern and winnowing tail-feather display, distinguished mainly by subtle wing and tail feather details assessable in the hand.
shorebird
Secretarybird
A tall, long-legged raptor that hunts on foot across the African savanna, with pale gray body feathers, black flight and thigh feathers, and long black crest plumes at the back of the head.
raptor
Red-and-green Macaw
One of the largest macaws, a vivid red parrot of South American forests with a green wing band, blue flight feathers, and a bare white face marked with thin lines of red feathers.
parrot
Snowy Owl
A large, striking white owl of the high Arctic, whose feathers vary from nearly pure white in adult males to heavily barred in females and young birds, all cushioned by exceptionally dense feathering for cold protection.
owl
Northern Cardinal
The Northern Cardinal is a stocky, crested songbird whose males shed brilliant all-red feathers while females drop more subdued brown feathers tinged with red on the wings, tail and crest.
songbird
Eurasian Jay
A shy woodland corvid best known for its brilliant sky-blue, black-barred wing covert feathers — among the most eye-catching and easily recognized feathers found in temperate woodland.
corvid
Wilson's Snipe
A secretive, superbly camouflaged marsh bird whose intricately patterned brown-and-buff feathers provide near-perfect concealment among wetland vegetation, with narrow outer tail feathers used to produce an eerie winnowing sound in flight.
shorebird
Temminck's Stint
A small, plain-plumaged stint that favors quiet freshwater edges over open mudflats, distinguished from its rufous relatives by generally duller upperpart feathers and distinctive white outer tail feathers.
shorebird
Golden Conure
A strikingly golden-yellow Amazonian parrot with contrasting green wing feathers and a long tail.
parrot
Steppe Eagle
The Steppe Eagle is a large, uniformly dark brown Eurasian eagle of open grassland, with long fingered wingtips and fully feathered legs. Its flight feathers show subtle grey barring underneath, and juveniles display a pale band across the underwing.
raptor
Vesper Sparrow
A streaky grassland sparrow best identified by white outer tail feathers and a small chestnut shoulder patch.
songbird
Helmeted Hornbill
The Helmeted Hornbill is a large, distinctive Southeast Asian rainforest bird best known for its solid casque and greatly elongated central tail feathers, which extend far beyond the rest of the tail. Its dark body plumage contrasts with white leg feathers and a long, banded tail.
other
Red-legged Partridge
A plump, ground-dwelling gamebird whose boldly barred flank feathers in black, white, and chestnut are unmistakable at close range.
gamebird