Bird Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ birds — with size, habitat, diet, voice, behavior, and the field marks that tell them apart.
Bonelli's Eagle
A powerful, agile eagle of Mediterranean cliffs and gorges, Bonelli's Eagle is a fast, low-flying hunter of rabbits and gamebirds across southern Europe, Africa, and Asia.
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Black Vulture
A stocky, all-black scavenger with a bare gray head and short, broad wings, recognized in flight by white patches near the wingtips and quick, choppy flapping.
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White-tailed Kite
A pale, elegant hawk with black shoulder patches that hunts by hovering gracefully over open fields on beating wings.
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White-tailed Eagle
A massive Eurasian raptor with a barn-door wingspan, pale head, and unmistakable wedge-shaped white tail.
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Turkey Vulture
A large, dark scavenger with a naked red head and a distinctive tilting, V-shaped soaring flight, famed for its exceptional sense of smell.
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Zone-tailed Hawk
A blackish hawk that mimics the flight and silhouette of Turkey Vultures, letting it sneak up on unsuspecting prey.
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Swallow-tailed Kite
An unmistakable black-and-white raptor with a deeply forked tail that glides effortlessly over southern swamps.
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Tawny Eagle
A variably colored savanna eagle of Africa known for its highly opportunistic feeding, from scavenging carcasses to stealing prey from other birds.
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Wedge-tailed Eagle
Australia's largest bird of prey, the Wedge-tailed Eagle is a huge, dark brown raptor named for its distinctive long, diamond-shaped tail, often seen soaring effortlessly over open country.
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White-tailed Hawk
A striking pale-headed hawk of coastal Texas prairies, sometimes seen gathering at grass fires to catch fleeing prey.
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Western Marsh Harrier
The largest of the harriers, a broad-winged raptor that quarters low over reedbeds with wings held in a shallow V.
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Yellow-billed Kite
A common, adaptable African raptor with a bright yellow bill and forked tail, often seen soaring over towns and open country.
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Whistling Kite
A pale, long-winged raptor named for its distinctive whistling call, often seen soaring lazily over open country.
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White-backed Vulture
A gregarious African savanna vulture, once the continent's most numerous vulture, now Critically Endangered due to poisoning.
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Verreaux's Eagle
A large, all-black eagle of African mountains and cliffs that specializes almost exclusively in hunting rock hyraxes.
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Prairie Falcon
A pale, sandy-brown falcon of the arid West, identified in flight by dark patches under the wings near the body.
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Swainson's Hawk
A long-winged prairie hawk famous for one of the longest migrations of any North American raptor, traveling all the way to the pampas of Argentina.
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Pale Chanting Goshawk
A pale gray hawk of southern Africa's arid regions, known for its melodious whistled call and habit of hunting alongside mammals that flush prey.
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Palm-nut Vulture
An unusual, mostly fruit-eating vulture with black-and-white plumage that lives near oil palms and waterways in West and Central Africa.
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Snail Kite
A marsh-dwelling raptor with a slender, deeply hooked bill perfectly shaped for extracting apple snails from their shells.
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Northern Harrier
A slim, low-flying hawk of open marshes and fields, identified by its owl-like facial disc and white rump patch.
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Sharp-shinned Hawk
North America's smallest accipiter, a compact, forest-dwelling hawk built for quick, agile pursuit of small songbirds.
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Ornate Hawk-Eagle
A powerful, crested forest eagle with a striking black-and-rufous head pattern and boldly barred underparts, a top predator of the Neotropical canopy.
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Red-shouldered Hawk
A colorful woodland buteo with rich rufous shoulders and underparts, closely tied to river bottoms and swampy forest.
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Rüppell's Vulture
A large, mottled griffon vulture of Africa's savannas famed for flying higher than any other bird on record.
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Saker Falcon
A large, powerful falcon of the Eurasian steppes known for hunting ground squirrels in open country.
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Rough-legged Hawk
A large arctic-breeding hawk with feathered legs, seen across open fields and marshes farther south in winter, known for its habit of hovering while hunting.
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Philippine Eagle
The national bird of the Philippines, this critically endangered eagle sports a shaggy, lion-like crest of brown feathers and ranks among the largest and rarest eagles on Earth.
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Red Kite
A large, russet raptor with a deeply forked tail, effortless soaring flight, and a habit of scavenging carrion.
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Secretarybird
A striking long-legged African raptor that hunts on foot across open grassland, famous for stomping venomous snakes to death.
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Short-tailed Hawk
A compact tropical buteo, found in Florida in both dark and light color forms, that hunts songbirds from high overhead.
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Steller's Sea Eagle
A massive coastal eagle of the Russian Far East with a huge yellow bill and bold white shoulder, thigh, and tail patches.
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Peregrine Falcon
The fastest animal on Earth, this powerful falcon stoops on other birds at speeds exceeding 300 km/h (200 mph).
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Red-tailed Hawk
North America's most familiar large hawk, often seen soaring over highways or perched on poles, named for the adult's brick-red tail.
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Osprey
A large, fish-eating hawk found near water nearly worldwide, easily known by its white underparts, dark eye-stripe, and dramatic feet-first dive for fish.
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Northern Goshawk
The largest and most powerful accipiter, a fierce forest hawk of mature woodlands with a bold white eyebrow and blazing red eyes.
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Montagu's Harrier
The slimmest and most elegant of the harriers, a long-distance migrant that increasingly nests in arable farmland.
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Griffon Vulture
A huge, broad-winged Old World vulture that soars in flocks over mountains and plains searching for large animal carcasses.
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Mississippi Kite
A sleek, buoyant gray falcon-like kite that catches cicadas and dragonflies on the wing over Great Plains and southern woodlands.
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Merlin
A compact, fast-flying falcon that chases down small birds with relentless, low-level pursuit rather than a high stoop.
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Gyrfalcon
The largest falcon in the world, a powerful Arctic hunter that ranges from pure white to dark slate-gray in color.
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Lanner Falcon
A medium-large falcon of Africa and southern Eurasia recognized by its rusty crown and fast, agile flight in open country.
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King Vulture
A large, boldly colored Neotropical vulture with a strikingly multicolored bare head that dominates carcasses in tropical forests.
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Lappet-faced Vulture
Africa's largest vulture, instantly recognizable by its massive bill and bare pink-red head draped with fleshy folds of skin.
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Laughing Falcon
A cream-headed, masked falcon specialized in hunting snakes, famous for its loud, laughing duets that ring across Neotropical woodlands.
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Lammergeier
A huge Old World vulture famous for dropping bones onto rocks to crack them open and feeding almost exclusively on bone marrow.
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Harris's Hawk
A dark chocolate-brown desert hawk famous for hunting cooperatively in family groups, unlike almost any other raptor.
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Nankeen Kestrel
Australia's smallest falcon, a rufous-backed kestrel famous for hovering motionless in the air while scanning for prey.
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