Bird Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ birds — with size, habitat, diet, voice, behavior, and the field marks that tell them apart.
Black Vulture
A stocky, black scavenger with a bare gray head, short tail, and whitish wingtip patches, often seen in social groups.
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White-tailed Kite
A pale, falcon-shaped kite with black shoulder patches and glowing red eyes that hovers like a kestrel over open fields.
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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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Merlin
A compact, fierce little falcon that chases down small birds in fast, low, relentless pursuit flight.
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American Kestrel
North America's smallest and most colorful falcon, a rufous-and-blue open-country bird often seen hovering or perched on wires.
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Peregrine Falcon
The world's fastest animal, a powerful falcon with a slate-blue back and black hood that stoops on flying birds at extreme speed.
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White-tailed Hawk
A striking pale-headed, rufous-shouldered hawk of coastal grasslands that is famously drawn to prairie fires to hunt fleeing prey.
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Common Black Hawk
A stocky, all-black riparian hawk with long yellow legs and a single broad white tail band, closely tied to desert streams.
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Crested Caracara
A long-legged, ground-walking raptor with a bare orange face and black crest that scavenges and hunts across open country.
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Aplomado Falcon
A slender, elegant falcon of open grasslands with a bold facial pattern, buffy chest band, and black belly, often hunting in pairs.
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California Condor
North America's largest flying land bird, an enormous black scavenger with a bald orange head, saved from the brink of extinction through intensive captive breeding.
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Gyrfalcon
The world's largest falcon, a powerful Arctic hunter occurring in white, gray, and dark color morphs.
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Turkey Vulture
A large, dark scavenging bird often seen soaring in wobbly circles on upheld wings while searching for carrion by scent.
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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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Swallow-tailed Kite
An unmistakable black-and-white raptor with a long, deeply forked tail that feeds acrobatically on the wing.
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Prairie Falcon
A sandy-brown falcon of the arid West, identified in flight by dark patches under the wings where they meet the body.
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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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Zone-tailed Hawk
An all-black hawk that mimics the flight and silhouette of a Turkey Vulture to sneak up on unsuspecting prey.
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Ferruginous Hawk
The largest North American buteo, a pale, rusty-shouldered hawk of the open western prairie and shrub-steppe.
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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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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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Golden Eagle
A massive, powerful eagle of open western landscapes, dark brown overall with golden feathering on the back of the head and neck.
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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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Broad-winged Hawk
A compact eastern forest hawk famous for gathering by the thousands into swirling migratory "kettles" each fall.
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Gray Hawk
A pale, finely barred hawk of southwestern river woodlands with a boldly banded black-and-white tail.
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Short-tailed Hawk
A compact, high-soaring buteo occurring in dark and light color morphs that specializes in catching small birds on the wing.
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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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Mississippi Kite
A slender, buoyant gray falcon-like kite that snatches dragonflies and cicadas out of the air on the wing.
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Harris's Hawk
A dark, chestnut-shouldered desert hawk uniquely famous for hunting cooperatively in family packs.
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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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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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Bald Eagle
The United States' national bird, a massive fish-eating eagle known for its white head and tail and huge wingspan.
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Cooper's Hawk
A medium-sized woodland hawk that has become a common backyard predator at bird feeders, agile enough to chase prey through dense cover.
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