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.
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
Swallow-tailed Kite
A graceful, boldly two-toned raptor with a deeply forked tail, whose sharp black-and-white feathers are unlike almost any other North American bird of prey.
raptor
Black Kite
The Black Kite is a widespread Old World raptor with dull dark brown plumage, a slightly forked tail, and finely barred flight feathers, notable for its adaptability to human-altered landscapes including cities and rubbish sites.
raptor
Red Kite
A rufous, forked-tailed raptor of Europe whose long, angular wings and deeply forked tail feathers are among the most recognizable silhouettes in the sky.
raptor
Mississippi Kite
The Mississippi Kite is a small, elegant grey kite with a pale head, darker grey back and wings, a solid black tail, and long pointed wings, often seen catching flying insects on the wing over open groves and parks.
raptor
Black-winged Kite
The Old World counterpart of the White-tailed Kite, a small pale gray-and-white raptor with a black shoulder patch and striking red eyes.
raptor
Brahminy Kite
A handsome coastal raptor with a crisp white head and breast set against warm chestnut wings and body, common along tropical shorelines of Asia and Australia.
raptor
Yellow-billed Kite
A widespread African kite closely related to the Black Kite, distinguished by its bright yellow bill and dark brown plumage, common around towns, wetlands, and open savanna.
raptor
Red-shouldered Hawk
The Red-shouldered Hawk is a woodland buteo with rufous-barred underparts, reddish shoulder patches, a boldly black-and-white banded tail, and a translucent pale crescent near the wingtip visible in flight.
raptor
White-tailed Hawk
A handsome open-country hawk with a gray back, white underparts, rufous shoulders, and a crisp white tail marked by a single bold black band near the tip.
raptor
Black-tailed Godwit
A striking Eurasian godwit with a bold black tail band, broad white wingbar, and rich chestnut breeding underparts, closely associated with lowland wet grasslands and meadows now much reduced across parts of its range.
shorebird
Whistling Kite
A common, pale kite of Australia and New Guinea best known for its far-carrying whistled call, with buff-brown body feathers contrasting against darker flight feathers in flight.
raptor
Snail Kite
A marsh-dwelling raptor with a thin, deeply curved bill for extracting apple snails, and feathers ranging from slaty gray in males to warm streaked brown in females and young birds.
raptor
Scissor-tailed Flycatcher
An unmistakable flycatcher with an extremely long, deeply forked black-and-white tail and soft salmon-pink flanks against pale gray plumage.
songbird
Long-tailed Tit
A tiny, round-bodied tit with an extraordinarily long tail exceeding its body length, patterned in black, white, and soft dusky pink, among the most distinctive silhouettes in European woodland.
songbird
Black Caracara
An almost entirely glossy black raptor of the Amazon basin, distinguished mainly by a flash of white at the base of the tail, often seen along rivers and forest clearings.
raptor
Black Phoebe
A dark, tail-wagging flycatcher almost always found perched near water, easily told by its sooty black body and clean white belly.
songbird
Black-necked Stilt
A tall, slender American shorebird in crisp black-and-white plumage, best known for its extremely long, thin pink-red legs that trail well beyond the tail in flight.
shorebird
Common Black Hawk
A stocky, broad-winged hawk of wooded streams and mangroves, easily told from other dark raptors by its nearly all-black plumage crossed by a single wide white tail band.
raptor
Black-billed Magpie
A boldly patterned black-and-white corvid of the American West, instantly recognizable by its long, iridescent tail and noisy, sociable habits.
corvid
Black-chested Buzzard-Eagle
A massive, broad-winged raptor of the Andes and southern grasslands, recognized by its silvery flight feathers, short wedge tail, and sharply contrasting black chest patch against a white belly.
raptor
Black-throated Magpie-Jay
A close relative of the White-throated Magpie-Jay, distinguished by a bold black throat and breast band and an even longer, more elaborate tail.
corvid
Elegant Trogon
A striking trogon of southwestern borderland canyons, the Elegant Trogon shows metallic green upperparts, a vivid red belly, and a coppery tail with a bold black-and-white barred underside.
other
Bulwer's Pheasant
A Bornean forest pheasant with glossy blue-black plumage, an extraordinary curved white tail, and bright red facial wattles that expand dramatically during display.
gamebird