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.
Kakapo
A large, flightless, nocturnal parrot with soft, moss-green plumage patterned for camouflage on the forest floor.
parrot
Turquoise-browed Motmot
This Central American motmot is best known for its bright turquoise eyebrow stripe and long tail ending in bare-shafted rackets that it swings like a pendulum.
other
Yellow-browed Bunting
A Siberian-breeding bunting recognized by its yellow-tinged eyebrow stripe fading to white toward the back of the head.
songbird
Black-browed Albatross
One of the most widespread and abundant albatrosses, readily identified by a bold dark stripe through the eye that gives it a permanently stern, 'browed' expression.
seabird
Meyer's Parrot
Meyer's Parrot is a small, subtly colored African parrot with a brownish-grey body offset by a turquoise belly and yellow shoulder patches.
parrot
Morepork
New Zealand's small native owl, named for its call and known to Maori as ruru, with dark brown feathers mottled with pale buff spotting and streaked underparts.
owl
Short-toed Snake Eagle
The Short-toed Snake Eagle is a pale-bellied Eurasian eagle with brown upperparts, a mottled brown breast, finely barred flight and tail feathers, and a large owl-like head adapted for scanning the ground for reptile prey.
raptor
Southern Boobook
Australia's most familiar and widespread owl, named for its distinctive 'boo-book' call, with dark brown feathers boldly spotted white above and streaked buff below.
owl
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
California Towhee
The California Towhee is a large, plain brown sparrow relative common in West Coast gardens and chaparral, best known for its rufous undertail and persistent chip calls.
songbird
Arizona Woodpecker
A woodpecker of southwestern oak canyons notable for its plain brown back, unlike the black-and-white barred pattern of most related species.
woodpecker
Griffon Vulture
A large Old World vulture with warm tawny-brown body feathers, contrasting dark flight feathers, and a distinctive white downy ruff at the base of the neck.
raptor
Fulvous Whistling-Duck
A warm tawny-buff duck with a long neck and legs, showing pale creamy streaking along the flanks and a dark cap contrasting with a pale face.
waterfowl
Collared Forest Falcon
A large, owl-faced Neotropical forest raptor with short rounded wings and a long barred tail, known for a dark neck collar and loud calls echoing through the forest at dawn and dusk.
raptor
Eurasian Woodcock
The larger Eurasian relative of the American Woodcock, sharing the same dead-leaf camouflage pattern and forest-floor lifestyle, but with a grayer overall tone and a distinctive slow, owl-like display flight known as roding.
shorebird
Brush Bronzewing
A ground-loving Australian pigeon named for the shimmering bronze, green, and purple spots that gleam across its folded wings.
dove pigeon
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
Veery
The warmest-toned of the North American Catharus thrushes, with an evenly tawny-rufous back and only faint spotting on a pale breast.
songbird
Laughing Dove
A small, warm pinkish-cinnamon dove named for its bubbling, laugh-like coo, with a distinctive speckled black patch across the upper breast.
dove pigeon
Northern Harrier
The Northern Harrier, sometimes called the Marsh Hawk, is a slim, long-winged raptor of open grassland and marsh, known for its low, tilting flight, a distinctive white rump patch in all plumages, and an owl-like facial disc that helps it hear prey in the grass.
raptor
Indian Robin
A small, confiding songbird of dry open country in South Asia, glossy black or brown with a chestnut patch under the tail that flashes as it forages on the ground.
songbird
Sand Martin
The Sand Martin is the smallest European swallow-relative, with plain sandy-brown upperpart feathers, white underparts, and a distinctive brown breast band.
songbird
Eurasian Blackcap
A plain grey-brown warbler whose crown feathers immediately reveal its sex: solid glossy black in males, warm reddish-brown in females and juveniles.
songbirdBank Swallow
A small, plain brown-and-white swallow told from other species by a clean brown breast band across otherwise white underparts.
songbird