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 Towhee
A large, ground-dwelling sparrow relative with bold black (or brown), white, and rufous plumage, often first noticed scratching noisily through leaf litter in dense thickets.
songbird
Spotted Towhee
The western counterpart to the Eastern Towhee, distinguished by bold white spots and streaks across the back and wing feathers layered over the same black-rufous-white color scheme.
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
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
Abert's Towhee
Abert's Towhee is a warm buffy-brown desert bird tied closely to riparian mesquite thickets of the low desert Southwest, identified by its black face patch.
songbird
Green-tailed Towhee
The Green-tailed Towhee is a striking western sparrow relative with olive-green wings and tail, a rufous cap, and a bold white throat, found in mountain shrublands.
songbird
Eastern Screech-Owl
A small, common owl of eastern North American woodlands and suburbs, occurring in both a grey and a rufous color morph, both finely patterned to resemble tree bark.
owl
Eastern Whipbird
The Eastern Whipbird is a skulking, olive-green Australian songbird best known for its explosive, whip-crack call rather than for being easily seen.
songbird
Eastern Rosella
The Eastern Rosella is a strikingly patterned Australian parrot with a red head and breast, a scalloped yellow-green back, a white cheek patch, and blue wings.
parrot
Eastern Phoebe
A plain-plumaged flycatcher recognized more by its tail-wagging habit than bright colors, with grayish-brown feathers above and a faint yellow wash on white underparts.
songbird
Eastern Meadowlark
A chunky grassland songbird with a bright yellow breast crossed by a bold black V, camouflaged brown-and-black upperparts, and white outer tail feathers flashed in flight.
songbird
Eastern Kingbird
A bold, dark-backed flycatcher with clean white underparts and a distinctive white terminal band across an otherwise black tail.
songbird
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
Eastern Yellow Robin
The Eastern Yellow Robin is a small Australian robin with a grey back, bright yellow underparts, and an upright, alert perching posture.
songbird
Far Eastern Curlew
The largest curlew species in the world, the Far Eastern Curlew is a dark, heavily streaked shorebird with an exceptionally long bill, dependent on East Asian-Australasian tidal mudflats for its migration.
shorebird
Eastern Wood-Pewee
A modestly plumaged woodland flycatcher known more for its plaintive whistled song than its subtle olive-gray coloring and faint wing bars.
songbird
Eastern Imperial Eagle
A large steppe eagle recognized by small white patches on the shoulders (scapulars) contrasting with otherwise dark brown plumage and a pale, creamy nape.
raptor
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
Winter Wren
A tiny, rounded, rufous-brown wren of dense eastern forest understory, told from its close relatives mainly by voice and range, given its very similar plumage.
songbird
Albert's Lyrebird
A rarer relative of the Superb Lyrebird found only in a small area of eastern Australia, Albert's Lyrebird has a more subdued rufous-brown plumage and a less elaborate but still distinctive ornamental tail.
songbird
Willet
A large, plain-looking shorebird that transforms in flight, revealing a bold black-and-white wing pattern unlike any other North American sandpiper.
shorebird
Grass Owl
A ground-nesting barn-owl relative of tall grasslands from Asia to Australia, with long slender legs and golden-buff to dark brown feathers finely spotted, adapted to a life spent low over open grass.
owl
Amur Falcon
The Amur Falcon is a small migratory falcon breeding in eastern Asia and famed for an enormous transoceanic migration to southern Africa, closely resembling the related Red-footed Falcon.
raptor
Wild Turkey
A large North American gamebird with iridescent bronze-green body feathers, a broad fan-shaped tail banded in dark brown and buff, and a bare, colorful head.
gamebird