Bird Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ birds — with size, habitat, diet, voice, behavior, and the field marks that tell them apart.
Fantail Pigeon
A distinctive domestic pigeon breed known for its greatly enlarged, upright, fan-shaped tail and characteristic strutting walk.
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Domestic Pigeon
The familiar pigeon of city streets and parks, descended from escaped and released domesticated Rock Doves and now established in urban areas worldwide.
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Frillback Pigeon
A fancy pigeon breed distinguished by curled, frill-like feathers on its wings and breast, developed through selective breeding from the Rock Dove.
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Giant Kingfisher
Africa's largest kingfisher, a shaggy-crested, black-and-white speckled bird that hunts fish and crabs from streamside perches.
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Eurasian Collared-Dove
A pale, sandy-gray dove with a distinctive black half-collar on the nape, rapidly expanding across North America since escaping captivity in Florida in the 1980s.
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Eastern Whip-poor-will
A cryptically camouflaged eastern forest nightjar celebrated for its relentless, repeated nighttime song that gives the bird its name.
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Diamond Dove
A tiny Australian dove named for the scattering of white, diamond-like spots across its grey wings.
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Emerald Toucanet
A small, compact toucan relative clothed almost entirely in bright green plumage, with a bicolored bill and, in many populations, a blue-tinged throat.
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Golden-headed Quetzal
An Andean cloud-forest quetzal with iridescent green plumage, a golden-bronze sheen on the crown, and a crimson-red breast, but lacking the extremely long tail streamers of the Resplendent Quetzal.
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European Bee-eater
One of Europe's most vividly colored birds, a swallow-shaped hunter of flying insects with chestnut, yellow, and turquoise plumage.
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European Turtle Dove
A warm-toned, scaly-backed migrant dove famed for its purring song, now sharply declining across much of its European range.
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Eurasian Hoopoe
An unmistakable pinkish-brown bird with a tall erectile crest, boldly barred wings, and a long curved bill, named for its distinctive call.
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European Roller
A stocky, crow-sized bird with brilliant blue plumage and a chestnut back, named for its spectacular tumbling courtship flight.
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Chestnut-mandibled Toucan
One of the largest toucans in the Americas, with black plumage, a yellow bib, and a long bill that is mostly black above with a distinctive chestnut-brown lower mandible.
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Common Wood Pigeon
Europe's largest and most common pigeon, a plump gray bird with a white neck patch and bold white wing bars visible in flight.
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Corn Crake
A secretive, chicken-like grassland bird best known for its rasping, far-carrying 'crex-crex' call given at night.
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Blue-crowned Trogon
A South American trogon with a green head washed in blue on the crown, a black facial mask, and a yellow belly.
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D'Arnaud's Barbet
An East African ground barbet with black-and-white speckled plumage, a yellow face, and a bubbling duet call, often seen bobbing near termite mounds.
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Common Nighthawk
A cryptically patterned, long-winged aerial insect-hunter often seen at dusk with erratic, bat-like flight and a nasal "peent" call.
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Channel-billed Toucan
A large South American toucan with black plumage, a yellow-orange throat and breast, and a robust, mostly black bill with a colorful base.
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Australian Owlet-nightjar
A small, big-eyed nocturnal bird with soft grey-brown mottled plumage and whisker-like facial bristles, often seen peering from a tree hollow entrance by day.
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Chimney Swift
A dark, cigar-shaped aerial bird that nests almost exclusively in chimneys across eastern North America, spending nearly its entire life on the wing.
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Common Potoo
A large, cryptically patterned nocturnal bird that perches bolt upright on broken branch stubs, vanishing into the bark by day.
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Common Pauraque
A resident Rio Grande Valley nightjar often spotted along roadsides at night by its reflective red eyeshine.
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Broad-billed Motmot
A smaller forest motmot with a rufous chest and face, a green back and crown, and a broad, wide-based bill, often perching quietly low in the understorey.
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Black-collared Barbet
A stocky African barbet with a vivid red face and throat bordered by a black collar, famous for its synchronized duet calls.
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Chuck-will's-widow
The largest nightjar in North America, best known for its far-carrying, repetitive nighttime call that gives the bird its name.
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Common Kingfisher
A vivid jewel-toned kingfisher with electric-blue upperparts and orange underparts, often glimpsed as a flash of color over slow-moving rivers and ponds.
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Black-throated Trogon
A quiet lowland-forest trogon with a black face and throat, green upperparts, and a bright yellow belly.
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Common Swift
A sooty-brown, scythe-winged aerial specialist that spends nearly its entire life airborne, screaming past rooftops in fast, wheeling parties.
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Belted Kingfisher
A large, shaggy-crested, rattling-voiced kingfisher of North American waterways, in which the female is more colorful than the male.
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Common Cuckoo
A slender, hawk-like grey bird famous for its far-carrying call and its habit of laying eggs in the nests of other species.
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Black Swift
The largest North American swift, an all-dark bird that nests almost exclusively on cliff ledges behind or near waterfalls and in coastal sea caves.
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Collared Aracari
A slender, mid-sized toucan relative with a mostly black head and back, a yellow underside crossed by a black band and reddish spots, and a bicolored bill.
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Blue-winged Kookaburra
A large, pale-eyed kingfisher of northern Australia known for its harsh, cackling calls given by family groups at dawn and dusk.
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Common Ostrich
The world's largest and heaviest living bird, a flightless African ratite known for its long bare legs, tiny head, and remarkable running speed.
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Carmine Bee-eater
A dazzling, migratory African bee-eater with vivid carmine-pink plumage, a turquoise crown and throat, and long tail streamers, often seen riding on the backs of large animals to catch flushed insects.
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Asian Koel
A large, red-eyed cuckoo whose loud, rising 'ko-el' call announces the arrival of spring and summer across South Asian towns.
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Black-billed Cuckoo
A slim, elusive, all-dark-billed cuckoo of eastern thickets, distinguished from its yellow-billed relative by a red eye-ring and lack of rufous in the wing.
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Crested Barbet
A boldly spotted yellow, red, and black African barbet with a shaggy crest, best known for its long, monotonous trilling call.
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Common Ground Dove
A tiny, scaly-breasted dove of the southeastern and southern US, small enough to be mistaken for a sparrow until it flushes and shows rufous flashes in the wings.
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Common Pigeon
The familiar city pigeon, a highly adaptable descendant of the wild Rock Dove, seen worldwide in an enormous variety of plumage colors.
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Collared Trogon
A colorful trogon of Neotropical foothill forest, with a green back, red breast, and a narrow white band separating the two.
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Alpine Swift
A large swift of mountain cliffs with a white belly and throat separated by a brown breast band, among the fastest fliers in level flight.
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Common Poorwill
A small, cryptic desert nightjar uniquely known for entering a hibernation-like torpor to survive cold weather.
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African Grey Hornbill
A widespread African hornbill with understated grey-brown plumage, a pale eyebrow stripe, and a dark bill topped by a bony casque ridge in males.
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Amazonian Motmot
A striking green forest bird with a blue-and-black crown and a long tail ending in bare-shafted rackets that it swings like a pendulum.
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Crested Pigeon
A grey-brown pigeon with a slender upright black crest and iridescent green-and-purple wing patches, whose wings produce a distinctive whistling sound in flight.
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