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.
Great Horned Owl
One of the most widespread and powerful owls in the Americas, instantly recognizable by its prominent ear tufts and richly mottled brown plumage built for silent, nocturnal flight.
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Great Grey Owl
The longest owl in the world by overall length, cloaked in soft grey, finely mottled plumage and famous for its huge facial disc marked with distinct concentric rings.
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Barred Owl
A large, round-headed owl of eastern North American forests, known for its dark eyes and the distinctive combination of horizontal chest barring and vertical belly streaking on its plumage.
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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.
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Ural Owl
A large, pale grey-brown owl of Eurasian forests, known for its notably long tail and streaked (rather than barred) plumage, and for its fierce defense of nests.
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Fearful Owl
The Fearful Owl is a large, poorly known owl endemic to a few islands in the Solomon Islands, with rich brown, mottled plumage and a rounded, tuftless head.
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Papuan Hawk-Owl
A little-known, long-tailed forest owl endemic to New Guinea, with a hawk-like reduced facial disc and boldly barred underparts.
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Snowy-browed Owl
This tiny Asian pygmy owl is known for its compact, heavily spotted brown plumage and a pair of dark false eye-spots on the nape that help confuse predators.
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African Wood Owl
A medium-sized African forest owl without ear tufts, dark brown with white spotting above and boldly barred brown and white below, well known for its distinctive laughing duet call.
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Brown Wood Owl
The Brown Wood Owl is a large, dark forest owl of South and Southeast Asia known for its rich chocolate-brown plumage and heavily barred underparts.
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Eurasian Scops Owl
The Eurasian Scops Owl is a small, migratory owl of southern Europe and parts of Asia, known for its cryptic bark-patterned plumage and a monotonous, far-carrying whistled call.
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Balsas Screech-Owl
A little-known small owl endemic to Mexico's Balsas River basin, with subdued grey-brown, finely vermiculated plumage suited to dry tropical forest.
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Long-eared Owl
A slender, well-camouflaged owl best known for its long, closely set ear tufts and richly streaked orange-brown plumage, roosting communally in dense conifer stands.
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Puerto Rican Screech-Owl
The Puerto Rican Screech-Owl, locally known as the mucaro, is a small island-endemic owl with soft reddish-brown or grey-brown plumage and a rounded, nearly tuftless head.
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Southern White-faced Owl
A small grey African owl with a strikingly white facial disc rimmed in black and small ear tufts, known for dramatic threat and concealment postures.
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White-faced Scops Owl
The White-faced Scops Owl is an African savanna owl instantly recognized by its pale grey plumage, striking white facial disc rimmed in black, and long ear tufts, and known for a dramatic threat display.
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Oriental Scops Owl
The Oriental Scops Owl is a small, migratory Asian owl with cryptic bark-patterned plumage occurring in grey and rufous color morphs, and tiny ear tufts.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Spectacled Owl
A large Neotropical rainforest owl named for its bold white 'spectacle' markings around the eyes, with a dark chocolate-brown hood and chest band contrasting sharply against a warm buffy-yellow belly.
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