Bird Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ birds — with size, habitat, diet, voice, behavior, and the field marks that tell them apart.
Arctic Tern
A slender, graceful tern famous for undertaking the longest migration of any animal, traveling from Arctic breeding grounds to Antarctic waters and back each year.
seabird
Black-legged Kittiwake
A true oceanic gull that spends most of its life far from land, breeding in dense, noisy colonies on sheer sea cliffs and named for its distinctive 'kitti-waaake' call.
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Common Murre
A slender, penguin-like auk with a dark brown-black back and white underparts, breeding in dense, noisy cliff colonies.
seabird
Cory's Shearwater
A large, gull-like shearwater of the Atlantic Ocean, with brownish-grey upperparts, a yellowish bill, and a slow, languid flight low over the waves.
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Cape Cormorant
A glossy black cormorant of the southern African coastline that forms some of the largest seabird breeding colonies in the world.
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Common Loon
An iconic North American lake bird famed for its striking black-and-white checkered plumage and haunting, wavering calls.
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Cassin's Auklet
A small, plain sooty-gray auklet of the North Pacific that nests in burrows and forages mainly on krill and other tiny crustaceans.
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Brandt's Cormorant
A stocky, dark cormorant of the Pacific coast known for a buffy throat patch bordered by a striking blue breeding pouch, nesting in dense colonies on coastal cliffs and islands.
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Cape Petrel
A striking black-and-white checkered petrel of the Southern Ocean, often called the Pintado Petrel, well known for following ships far from land.
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Caspian Tern
The largest tern in the world, a gull-sized bird with a massive coral-red bill and a harsh, crow-like call, found on coasts and large lakes across every continent except Antarctica.
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California Gull
A medium-large western gull celebrated in Utah folklore for eating a devastating cricket infestation that threatened early Mormon settlers' crops.
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Arctic Loon
The Eurasian counterpart of the Pacific Loon, with a pale grey head, black throat, and a bold white flank patch visible while swimming.
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Chinstrap Penguin
A small, feisty Antarctic penguin named for the thin black line running under its chin, giving it a helmet-strap appearance.
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Black Tern
A small, buoyant marsh tern that turns almost entirely sooty black in breeding plumage and feeds by dipping to the water surface rather than plunge-diving.
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Australasian Gannet
A large white seabird with black wingtips and black central tail feathers that nests in dense colonies around Australia and New Zealand.
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Black Guillemot
A small all-black auk with striking white wing patches and bright red legs and mouth lining, found along rocky North Atlantic coasts.
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Common Tern
A widespread, medium-sized tern found across North America, Europe, and Asia, with a black cap, red-orange bill, and deeply forked tail typical of the group.
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Blue-footed Booby
An unmistakable brown-and-white booby famous for its bright blue feet, used in an elaborate courtship dance on Pacific coasts and islands.
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Atlantic Puffin
A charismatic black-and-white seabird with a colorful triangular bill, nicknamed the 'sea parrot,' that nests in burrows on North Atlantic cliffs.
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Adelie Penguin
A classic tuxedo-patterned penguin of Antarctica, easily told by the bold white ring encircling each eye.
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American White Pelican
One of North America's largest birds, an enormous white waterbird with a huge orange bill and pouch that fishes cooperatively by herding fish into shallow water rather than diving.
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Black Skimmer
A unique black-and-white coastal bird with an oversized red-and-black bill whose lower mandible is longer than the upper, used to skim fish from the water's surface in flight.
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African Penguin
The only penguin species breeding on the African continent, named for its loud, donkey-like braying call and identified by a black facial mask and unique belly-spot pattern.
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African Skimmer
A slender riverine skimmer of sub-Saharan Africa with an orange-yellow, black-tipped bill, sharing the family's unique lower-mandible-skimming feeding technique.
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