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.
Red-eyed Vireo
The Red-eyed Vireo is a common, persistent-singing woodland bird with a bold gray-and-white head pattern and, in adults, a distinctive red iris.
songbird
Rifleman
The Rifleman is New Zealand's smallest bird, a tiny, almost tailless forest species that creeps up tree trunks probing bark for insects.
songbird
Red Wattlebird
The Red Wattlebird is Australia's largest mainland honeyeater, a grey-brown bird with a fleshy red wattle, yellow belly, and loud, unmusical calls.
songbird
Canyon Towhee
The Canyon Towhee is a plain, dusty-brown ground bird of southwestern deserts and canyons, distinguished by a rufous crown and a dark central breast spot.
songbird
Brown Kiwi
A flightless, nocturnal New Zealand bird with shaggy, hair-like feathers and a long probing bill used to find invertebrates in leaf litter.
other
Ring-necked Pheasant
A large, long-tailed gamebird whose males carry some of the most vividly iridescent body feathers and dramatically elongated tail feathers of any bird found in open countryside.
gamebird
Wedge-tailed Eagle
Australia's largest bird of prey, distinguished from all other eagles by its remarkably long, diamond-shaped tail feathers, the longest relative to body size of any eagle.
raptor
Tawny Owl
A stocky woodland owl whose bark-patterned, silent-edged feathers make it one of the most cryptically camouflaged birds in the forest.
owl
Sage Thrasher
The smallest and most compact North American thrasher, a streaky gray-brown bird of sagebrush country with a shorter, straighter bill than its relatives.
songbird
Paradise Tanager
One of the most vividly colored songbirds in the world, the Paradise Tanager combines a turquoise-green head, black back, red rump, and purplish-blue throat in a single small canopy bird.
songbird
Hoatzin
An unusual, primitive-looking bird of Amazonian and Orinoco wetlands, with a spiky rufous crest, bright blue bare facial skin, and reddish eyes, known for chicks with clawed wings used to climb.
other
Tawny Frogmouth
A nocturnal Australian bird with mottled grey-brown feathers that mimic tree bark, allowing it to remain nearly invisible while perched motionless during the day.
other
North Island Robin
The North Island Robin is a dark, upright-perching forest bird of New Zealand's North Island, known for its tame curiosity around ground disturbance.
songbird
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
Pacific Parrotlet
The Pacific Parrotlet is one of the smallest parrots, a compact green bird from western South America in which males show patches of blue on the wings and rump.
parrot
Crested Tit
The Crested Tit is a small European woodland bird easily recognized by its pointed, black-and-white speckled crest, a feature unique among the continent's tits.
songbird
Chimney Swift
A cigar-shaped aerial bird with uniformly sooty gray-brown plumage and stiff, spine-tipped tail feathers used to brace against vertical surfaces.
other
California Thrasher
The largest North American thrasher, a dark chocolate-brown bird of California chaparral with a long, strongly curved bill adapted for digging through leaf litter.
songbird
Yellow-headed Blackbird
The Yellow-headed Blackbird is a large, striking marsh bird easily identified by its bright yellow head and breast contrasting sharply with glossy black body plumage and a bold white wing patch.
songbird
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
One of the smallest songbirds in North America, this active, constantly flicking bird carries a hidden ruby-red crown patch in males that is usually concealed and only flashed briefly during excitement or display.
songbird
Common Swift
The Common Swift is an almost entirely aerial bird with long, scythe-like flight feathers and uniformly sooty-brown plumage, built for a life spent on the wing far more than any songbird.
other
Goldcrest
Europe's smallest bird, identifiable even from a single tiny feather by its vivid black-bordered crown stripe — orange in males, yellow in females — set against olive-green plumage.
songbird
Wandering Albatross
The largest of all flying birds by wingspan, an immense white seabird of the Southern Ocean whose plumage whitens progressively with age over many years.
seabird
Splendid Fairywren
The Splendid Fairywren is a tiny songbird whose breeding males are almost entirely brilliant blue and violet, among the most vividly coloured birds in Australia.
songbird