Bird Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ birds — with size, habitat, diet, voice, behavior, and the field marks that tell them apart.
Peruvian Pelican
A large, dark pelican of the cold Humboldt Current, closely tied to the rich anchoveta fisheries off Peru and Chile and vulnerable to periodic El Nino-driven food shortages.
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Brown Pelican
A familiar coastal seabird known for its dramatic head-first plunge-dives from height into the ocean to catch fish, once endangered by DDT but now fully recovered.
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Bonaparte's Gull
A small, tern-like gull with a delicate black bill that is unusual among gulls for nesting in trees in the boreal forest.
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Razorbill
A stocky black-and-white North Atlantic auk with a deep, blunt bill crossed by a white line, the closest living relative of the extinct Great Auk.
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Common Gull
A gentle, medium-sized gull widespread across northern Eurasia, closely related to but geographically separate from the North American Mew (Short-billed) Gull.
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Western Gull
A large, dark-backed gull restricted almost entirely to the Pacific coast of North America, a common sight on rocky shorelines and piers from Washington to Baja California.
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Thick-billed Murre
A stocky Arctic auk similar to the Common Murre but with a shorter, thicker bill marked by a pale gape stripe.
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Yellow-billed Loon
The largest and rarest loon species, identified by its massive, pale, slightly upturned yellowish bill.
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Wilson's Storm-Petrel
A tiny, swallow-sized seabird, sooty-black with a white rump band, famous for pattering its feet across the water's surface as it feeds, and considered one of the most abundant birds on Earth.
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Yellow-eyed Penguin
A large, solitary-nesting New Zealand penguin named for its pale yellow eyes and the yellow band that sweeps across its head, considered one of the rarest penguin species.
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Wandering Albatross
The largest flying seabird in the world, with a wingspan reaching up to 3.5 meters, capable of gliding for thousands of miles over the Southern Ocean with barely a wingbeat.
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Tufted Puffin
A large North Pacific puffin with a massive orange bill and long golden head plumes trailing backward in breeding plumage.
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White Tern
An entirely white, ethereal tern with large dark eyes that famously balances its single egg on a bare tree branch without building any nest at all.
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Yellow-legged Gull
A large gull of the Mediterranean and western Europe, similar to the Herring Gull but with yellow legs and a darker mantle, and a rare vagrant to eastern North America.
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Whiskered Tern
A marsh tern with dark grey underparts, a black cap, and a crisp white cheek stripe that gives it a distinctive 'whiskered' face pattern.
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Sooty Shearwater
A dark, sooty-brown shearwater famous for one of the longest annual migrations of any bird, tracing a huge figure-eight loop across entire ocean basins.
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Pigeon Guillemot
A dark sooty-black North Pacific auk with a white wing patch crossed by a dark wedge, and bright red feet.
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Spot-billed Pelican
A greyish Asian pelican named for the dark spots that appear on its bill during the breeding season, with strongholds in protected wetlands of India, Sri Lanka, and Cambodia.
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Waved Albatross
The only albatross species found in the tropics, breeding almost exclusively on a single Galapagos island and famous for its elaborate bill-fencing courtship dance.
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Royal Tern
A large, orange-billed tern of sandy beaches and estuaries, second in size only to the Caspian Tern, often seen with a shaggy black crest streaming in the wind.
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Sooty Tern
A truly pelagic tern with sooty black-brown upperparts and crisp white underparts that spends most of its life on the wing far out over tropical seas.
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Northern Fulmar
A stocky, gull-like tube-nosed seabird of northern oceans, recognized by its stiff, straight-winged gliding flight low over the waves.
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Roseate Tern
A slender, pale tern with very long tail streamers and a faint rosy blush on the breast, prized by birders for its elegant, almost ghostly flight.
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Snow Petrel
An entirely pure-white seabird of the Antarctic pack ice, one of only a handful of bird species that breed farther south than almost any other on Earth.
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Neotropic Cormorant
The smallest and most widespread cormorant in the Americas outside North America's temperate zone, slender and long-tailed with a thin white border at the base of the bill in breeding plumage.
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Nazca Booby
A large white booby of the eastern Pacific closely related to the Masked Booby, distinguished by its bright orange-pink bill.
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Rhinoceros Auklet
A dusky-brown North Pacific auk named for the pale horn-like projection on its bill that develops in breeding season.
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Red-throated Loon
The smallest and most lightly built loon, distinguished in summer by a wine-red throat patch and a habit of holding its bill tilted upward.
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Southern Giant Petrel
A massive, bulky Southern Ocean petrel with a huge pale bill, often seen scavenging carcasses on subantarctic beaches, earning it the nickname "stinker."
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Sabine's Gull
A strikingly patterned Arctic gull with a bold tricolored wing and forked tail, spending most of the year far out at sea and undertaking one of the longest migrations of any gull.
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Pelagic Cormorant
A slim, iridescent black-green cormorant of rugged North Pacific coastlines, showing a thin bill and small head crests in breeding plumage, nesting precariously on narrow sea cliff ledges.
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Rockhopper Penguin
A small, feisty crested penguin known for hopping between boulders rather than waddling, with spiky yellow head plumes and red eyes.
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Royal Albatross
A huge white albatross of New Zealand waters, nearly the size of the Wandering Albatross, best known for the mainland colony at Taiaroa Head.
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Sandwich Tern
A slender, crested tern easily told from relatives by its long black bill with a distinctive yellow tip, named for the English town of Sandwich, Kent.
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Pink-backed Pelican
A relatively small, drab greyish pelican of African wetlands, named for a subtle pink tinge on the back that is often difficult to see in the field.
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Northern Gannet
The largest seabird in the North Atlantic, gleaming white with black wingtips and a golden-buff wash on the head, famous for spectacular high-speed plunge dives after fish.
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Red-footed Booby
The smallest and most variably plumaged booby, easily told by its bright red feet and habit of nesting in trees on remote tropical islands.
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Ring-billed Gull
A medium-sized, highly adaptable gull common far from the coast, easily told from larger gulls by its yellow legs and the black ring encircling its bill.
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Pacific Loon
A mid-sized loon with a smooth pale grey nape and a crisp black chin strap, common along the Pacific coast in winter.
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Masked Booby
The largest booby species, brilliant white with black flight feathers, a dark facial mask, and a bright yellow bill.
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Shy Albatross
A pale, white-headed mollymawk that breeds only on a handful of islands off Tasmania, identifiable by its grey-washed nape and pale yellowish bill.
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Ivory Gull
A striking, pure-white gull of the High Arctic pack ice, closely tied to sea ice and often found scavenging alongside polar bears at seal and whale carcasses.
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Iceland Gull
A pale, gentle-looking Arctic gull, smaller and more delicate than the similar Glaucous Gull, that winters along the North Atlantic coast and Great Lakes.
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Heermann's Gull
A strikingly uniform slate-gray gull with a bright red bill, breeding almost entirely on a single island in Mexico's Gulf of California before dispersing north along the Pacific coast.
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Great Frigatebird
A widespread tropical seabird with long angular wings and a forked tail, males displaying a striking inflatable scarlet throat pouch.
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Indian Skimmer
A striking black-capped skimmer of South Asian rivers, now Endangered due to widespread loss of undisturbed sandbar habitat along major waterways.
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Mew Gull
A small, gentle-faced gull of the Pacific Northwest, recently split from the Eurasian Common Gull and now officially known as the Short-billed Gull.
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Great Black-backed Gull
The largest gull in the world, an imposing, dark-backed predator of the North Atlantic coast that preys on other birds as readily as it scavenges.
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