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.
New Zealand Bellbird
The New Zealand Bellbird is an olive-green honeyeater-relative renowned for its clear, bell-like song, common in native forest across New Zealand.
songbird
Little Gull
The smallest gull in the world, a delicate Eurasian species with rounded wings, a buoyant tern-like flight, and strikingly dark underwings that flash as it wheels over the water.
seabird
Dunnock
An unassuming, sparrow-like songbird with soft grey head and breast feathers and a streaked brown back, easily overlooked but distinct once compared with true sparrows.
songbird
Clark's Nutcracker
A pale gray, crow-like bird of high mountain pine forests, best known for storing thousands of pine seeds each autumn to survive winter.
corvid
Common Rosefinch
A finch in which breeding males show a rosy-red head, breast, and rump, while females and immatures are plain streaked brown, sparrow-like birds.
songbird
Gull-billed Tern
A stocky, pale tern known for its short, thick, gull-like black bill rather than the slender dagger bill typical of most terns.
seabird
Worm-eating Warbler
A plain buffy-olive warbler of steep, leaf-littered forest slopes, marked by bold black stripes across the crown and through the eye and a notably long, spike-like bill.
songbird
Vaux's Swift
A tiny cigar-shaped swift of western forests that spends nearly its entire life on the wing, only clinging to vertical surfaces like hollow tree trunks to roost or nest.
other
Orange Dove
A Fijian fruit dove in which males glow a vivid, almost flame-like orange from head to tail, while females remain camouflaged in typical fruit-dove green.
dove pigeon
Green Bee-eater
A small, brilliantly green bee-eater found from Africa to South Asia, with a thin black eye stripe and a fine pin-like extension to its central tail feathers.
other
Brown Creeper
A tree-trunk specialist whose mottled brown and buff feathers mimic bark texture perfectly, paired with stiff, pointed tail feathers that brace against trunks like a woodpecker's.
songbird
Vulturine Guineafowl
The largest and most vividly plumed guineafowl, with a bare vulture-like blue head, long striped neck hackles, and a cobalt-blue breast spangled with white spots.
gamebird
Superb Lyrebird
One of the largest songbirds, the male Superb Lyrebird carries an extraordinary lyre-shaped tail with lace-like filamentous feathers, displayed during elaborate courtship performances.
songbird
Pileated Woodpecker
The largest common North American woodpecker, unmistakable for its crow-like size, deep black body, flaming red crest, and bold white neck stripes.
woodpecker
Pin-tailed Green Pigeon
The Pin-tailed Green Pigeon is a green forest pigeon distinguished by its long, needle-like central tail feathers that extend well beyond the rest of the tail.
dove pigeon
Himalayan Monal
A high-altitude Himalayan pheasant whose male gleams with iridescent green, purple, and bronze plumage, topped by an unusual crest of wire-like, spatula-tipped feathers.
gamebird
Barking Owl
An Australian hawk-owl named for its dog-like barking call, gray-brown above and heavily streaked below, favoring open woodland and riverine forest.
owl
Laughing Owl
An extinct New Zealand owl known for its odd, laughter-like call, with soft brown mottled plumage and a paler facial area; now known only from museum specimens.
owl
Royal Tern
One of the largest terns, approaching gull-like proportions, with a heavy orange bill and a shaggy black crest that is often reduced to a ragged crown patch outside the breeding season.
seabird
Indian Scops Owl
The Indian Scops Owl is a small, grey-brown owl of the Indian subcontinent whose finely mottled, bark-like feathers help it disappear against tree trunks by day.
owl
Hooded Warbler
A vivid yellow-faced warbler whose adult males wear a complete black hood over the crown, nape, and throat, framing the bright yellow face like a cowl.
songbird
Red-winged Blackbird
A common marsh-dwelling blackbird whose males display bold red-and-yellow shoulder patches on glossy black plumage, while females are entirely different, streaked brown like a large sparrow.
songbird
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
Northern Hawk-Owl
A falcon-like, day-hunting owl of the boreal forest, with a long tail, pointed wings, and boldly barred underparts, often seen perched conspicuously atop treetops scanning for prey.
owl