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.
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
Turkey Vulture
A widespread scavenger known for its two-toned wings, silvery flight feathers set against a dark body, and its habit of soaring in a shallow V with a distinctive teetering flight.
raptor
Ocellated Turkey
A striking Central American turkey with vivid blue-bronze iridescent body feathers and tail feathers marked with distinctive eye-shaped spots.
gamebird
Mallard
The world's most familiar duck, identifiable from almost any single wing feather by its glossy blue speculum bordered in white, shared by both sexes.
waterfowl
American Goldfinch
The American Goldfinch is famous for males turning vivid lemon-yellow with black wings and cap in breeding season, then molting to a dull olive plumage the rest of the year.
songbird
Passenger Pigeon
Once among the most numerous birds in North America, the Passenger Pigeon was a slender, fast-flying species with a long pointed tail and iridescent neck patch, driven to extinction by the early 1900s.
dove pigeon
Red Junglefowl
The wild ancestor of the domestic chicken, with males displaying glossy orange-gold neck hackles and long, curved, iridescent black tail feathers.
gamebird
Atlantic Canary
The wild ancestor of the domestic canary, a streaky yellow-green island finch native to the Canary Islands, Azores, and Madeira.
songbird
Zone-tailed Hawk
A blackish hawk that closely mimics the flight silhouette and dark coloring of the Turkey Vulture, distinguished mainly by its banded tail feathers.
raptor
African Collared-Dove
A pale, sandy-toned dove of African savanna and scrub, best known as the wild ancestor of the domesticated ring-necked dove.
dove pigeon
Red Siskin
A small, brilliantly red South American finch with a black hood and wings, now rare in the wild and notable for its striking male plumage.
songbird
Sun Parakeet
A vividly golden-yellow and orange parrot of the Guiana Shield in South America, with green and blue accents in the wings, prized in aviculture and now endangered in the wild.
parrot
Hawaiian Crow
A critically rare Hawaiian corvid with softer, browner plumage than mainland crows, subject to intensive conservation efforts after disappearing from the wild.
corvid
Budgerigar
A small, gregarious Australian parakeet whose wild-type plumage combines bright yellow-green underparts with a finely scalloped black-and-yellow pattern across the nape and wings.
parrot
Horned Screamer
A large, turkey-sized waterbird of South American wetlands, unmistakable for the long, slender horn-like spine projecting from its forehead. Its blackish, white-speckled plumage and loud trumpeting calls carry across open marshland.
other
Rock Dove
The wild ancestor of the familiar city pigeon, typically blue-grey with bold black wing bars and a white rump, though feral descendants show enormous color variation.
dove pigeon
Red-billed Quelea
A small African weaver famous for forming the largest flocks of any wild bird, with breeding males sporting a bold black or white facial mask and a bright red bill.
songbird
Great Curassow
A large, turkey-sized forest bird, with males glossy black and white below and topped by a curly crest and bright yellow bill knob. Females occur in several distinct color morphs, ranging from barred to rufous to blackish.
gamebird
Rock Pigeon
A stocky, familiar city bird whose feather color is famously variable, though wild-type individuals retain a blue-gray body with two dark wingbars and an iridescent green-purple neck.
dove pigeon
Muscovy Duck
A large, heavily built duck; wild birds are glossy black-green with white wing patches, while the widely domesticated and feral forms show highly variable pied black-and-white plumage.
waterfowl
Willie Wagtail
A bold black-and-white fantail relative common across Australia, the Willie Wagtail is known for constantly wagging its long tail from side to side while perched or foraging.
songbird
Striated Caracara
A bold, famously curious raptor of the Falkland Islands and southernmost Patagonia, showing dark brown, pale-streaked plumage well suited to its wind-scoured island habitat.
raptor