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.
Sulphur-crested Cockatoo
A large all-white cockatoo with a tall sulphur-yellow crest that fans forward when the bird is alert or excited.
parrot
Whiskered Tern
A compact marsh tern that turns a striking dark slate-gray across the body in breeding plumage, with a crisp white stripe dividing the black cap from the gray cheek.
seabird
White-throated Magpie-Jay
A dramatic Central American jay with a long, forward-curling crest and an exceptionally long, graduated blue-and-white tail.
corvid
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
Taiwan Blue Magpie
Taiwan's national bird, a richly blue-bodied corvid with a black head, red bill, and an exceptionally long tail tipped in white.
corvid
Giant Kingfisher
Africa's largest kingfisher, a bulky black-and-white bird with a shaggy crest, hunting fish along forested rivers and rocky streams.
other
Booted Racket-tail
A tiny Andean hummingbird best known for its puffy white leg feathers and, in males, a pair of long bare tail shafts ending in small dark paddle-shaped tips.
hummingbird
Hamerkop
A small brown African wading bird named for its hammer-shaped head, formed by a thick bill and a backward-pointing crest, best known for building enormous domed stick nests.
wading bird
Glaucous Gull
A massive, pale Arctic gull, the Glaucous Gull is unusual among large gulls for lacking black wingtips entirely, showing instead uniformly pale gray and white feathers well suited to its icy northern range.
seabird
Common Gull
A neat, medium-sized gull of Europe and Asia known as Mew Gull in North American populations, the Common Gull shows pale gray back feathers, black wingtips with white spots, and a gentle, rounded head shape.
seabird
Barn Owl
An elegant, heart-faced owl whose golden, finely speckled upperparts and ghostly pale underside make its feathers instantly distinctive among owls.
owl
White-throated Kingfisher
A widespread Asian kingfisher combining a rich chestnut body with a brilliant turquoise back, often perched conspicuously on wires and fence posts.
other
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
Southern Red Bishop
A small African weaver whose breeding males turn brilliant scarlet and black, one of the most vividly colored birds of Africa's wetland grasses.
songbird
Blue-and-yellow Macaw
A large, brilliantly two-toned macaw with deep blue upperparts and golden-yellow underparts, a green forehead patch, and bare white facial skin crossed by narrow lines of small feathers.
parrot
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
Short-toed Treecreeper
The Short-toed Treecreeper is a small, bark-colored woodland bird that spirals up tree trunks probing for insects, its mottled brown plumage providing near-perfect camouflage against bark.
songbird
Roadside Hawk
A small, common, and conspicuous hawk of the Neotropics, often seen perched along roadsides, identified by its gray-brown chest contrasting with a rufous-barred belly and narrowly banded tail.
raptor
Carolina Chickadee
The Carolina Chickadee is the southeastern counterpart to the Black-capped Chickadee, producing nearly identical tiny black-capped, gray-backed feathers.
songbird
Striated Heron
The Old World counterpart to the Green Heron, a small, stocky heron with grayer tones and finely streaked underparts, common along mangroves and tropical waterways.
wading bird
Limpkin
A brown, white-spotted wading bird related to both rails and cranes, known for its loud, wailing calls and long, slightly downcurved bill.
wading bird
Common Ostrich
The world's largest living bird, flightless with soft, loose plumage, males black-bodied with striking white plumes and females duller greyish-brown.
other
Northern Mockingbird
A slim gray songbird famous for its vocal mimicry, identifiable by the bold white patches on its wings and the white outer edges of its long tail.
songbird
Lesser Spotted Woodpecker
The Lesser Spotted Woodpecker is Europe's smallest woodpecker, its black-and-white barred back and small size distinguishing its feathers from the much larger, bolder-patched Great Spotted Woodpecker.
woodpecker