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.
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
Mute Swan
An enormous, entirely white waterbird whose large, gently curved feathers are unmistakable simply by their sheer size among freshwater birds.
waterfowl
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
European Robin
An iconic garden songbird with a vivid orange-red face and breast set against olive-brown upperparts, one of the most recognizable feather patterns in European gardens.
songbird
Mallard
The world's most familiar duck, identifiable from almost any single wing feather by its glossy blue speculum bordered in white, shared by both sexes.
waterfowl
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
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
Willow Warbler
A tiny, long-distance migrant warbler nearly identical to the Chiffchaff, best separated at the feather level by slightly yellower tones and pale pinkish (rather than dark) legs.
songbird
Downy Woodpecker
The smallest North American woodpecker, its black-and-white checkered feathers and short bill make it a common and easily identified backyard bird.
woodpecker
Brown-headed Cowbird
A small blackbird best known for laying its eggs in other birds' nests, with males showing a sharply contrasting brown head against a glossy black body and females entirely plain gray-brown.
songbird
Common Whitethroat
A small, active warbler with a bright white throat contrasting a grey head, and warm chestnut fringes on the wing feathers that add color to an otherwise modest bird.
songbird
Canada Goose
A large, familiar goose whose black neck feathers set off by a bold white chinstrap patch make it one of the easiest waterfowl to recognize from a single feather cluster.
waterfowl
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
White-tailed Kite
A pale, falcon-shaped kite known for hovering over open fields, with soft gray-and-white feathers and a distinctive black shoulder patch.
raptor
Southern Screamer
A large, gray, goose-like bird of southern South American wetlands, marked by a dark collar around the base of the neck and a short crest. Despite its bulky build it is an agile flier, often seen soaring on thermals over open marshland.
other
Wattled Crane
The largest crane in Africa, a grey wading bird with a black cap, striking white feathers hanging from the throat, and long fleshy wattles dangling below the face.
wading bird
Wood Thrush
A woodland thrush with a warm rufous-brown back brightest on the head, and a boldly spotted white breast that gives it one of the most striking feather patterns among eastern forest songbirds.
songbird
Indian Peafowl
One of the most recognizable birds in the world, with males displaying an iridescent blue neck and an immense fanning train of elongated feathers marked with large eyespots.
gamebird
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
Chipping Sparrow
The Chipping Sparrow is a small, neat sparrow recognized in breeding plumage by its bright rufous crown feathers over a clean, unstreaked gray breast.
songbird
Carolina Chickadee
The Carolina Chickadee is the southeastern counterpart to the Black-capped Chickadee, producing nearly identical tiny black-capped, gray-backed feathers.
songbird
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
Black-crested Titmouse
The Black-crested Titmouse is a Texas relative of the Tufted Titmouse, distinguished chiefly by its solid black, rather than gray, crest feathers.
songbird
California Quail
A familiar western quail known for the male's forward-drooping black head plume and scaled gray-brown body feathers, common in chaparral and suburban gardens alike.
gamebird