Bird Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ birds — with size, habitat, diet, voice, behavior, and the field marks that tell them apart.
Black-winged Stilt
The Old World stilt, with black wings and back set against pure white underparts and extremely long pink legs.
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Blacksmith Lapwing
The Blacksmith Lapwing is a striking black, white, and grey wetland plover named for its metallic "tink-tink" alarm call that resembles a blacksmith's hammer on an anvil.
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Willet
A plain gray-brown sandpiper that transforms in flight, flashing a bold black-and-white wing pattern unlike any other North American shorebird.
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Wilson's Snipe
A stocky, cryptically patterned North American marsh bird with an extremely long bill, best known for the eerie winnowing sound males make during display flights.
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Western Sandpiper
A tiny, abundant sandpiper with a longer, slightly drooped bill than its similar peep relatives, forming vast flocks at key coastal stopover sites.
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Whimbrel
A medium-sized curlew with a boldly striped crown and long decurved bill, found on nearly every coastline in the world outside the breeding season.
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Variable Oystercatcher
A coastal New Zealand shorebird with a long, chisel-like orange-red bill, notable for its variable plumage ranging from fully black to a pied black-and-white form.
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Wilson's Phalarope
The largest of the three phalarope species and the only one to breed in interior wetlands rather than the Arctic, with brighter females that spin gracefully on shallow ponds.
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Wilson's Plover
A stocky coastal plover named for ornithologist Alexander Wilson, easily told by its oversized, heavy black bill.
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Solitary Sandpiper
A dark, bold-eyed sandpiper of shaded pond edges that, true to its name, is almost always seen alone rather than in flocks.
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Pectoral Sandpiper
A medium-sized, long-necked sandpiper with a sharply demarcated streaked breast band, favoring wet grassy meadows over open mudflats.
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Red Knot
A chunky, robust sandpiper renowned for one of the longest migrations of any bird, famously refueling on horseshoe crab eggs at Delaware Bay.
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Sanderling
The pale, plump little sandpiper that chases retreating waves on sandy beaches worldwide, running like a wind-up toy to snatch food from the wet sand.
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Southern Lapwing
A bold, noisy lapwing of South American grasslands and wetlands, easily recognized by its black chest markings, red eye-ring, and loud alarm calls.
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Semipalmated Sandpiper
A small, gray-brown sandpiper with a short, straight bill and partially webbed toes, famous for forming massive migratory flocks at coastal staging sites.
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Ruddy Turnstone
A stocky, boldly patterned shorebird that flips stones, shells, and seaweed on the beach with its short, wedge-shaped bill in search of food.
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Semipalmated Plover
A small, compact plover with a single black breast band and orange legs, common on beaches and mudflats throughout the Americas during migration.
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Northern Lapwing
A crested, iridescent plover of European and Asian farmland, known for its tumbling display flights and wheezy "pee-wit" call.
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Red-necked Phalarope
A small, needle-billed shorebird that spins in tight circles on the water to stir up food, with brighter-plumaged females and a largely oceanic lifestyle outside the breeding season.
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Pied Avocet
A striking black-and-white wader with a slender upturned bill, famous as the emblem of British bird conservation.
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Spotted Sandpiper
A small, constantly bobbing sandpiper of North American shorelines, easily recognized in breeding plumage by the bold dark spots covering its white underparts.
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Pacific Golden-Plover
A slender, long-legged golden-plover that migrates from Siberian and Alaskan tundra to a vast wintering range spanning Pacific islands, coastal Asia, and Australia.
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Short-billed Dowitcher
A medium-large sandpiper with a long, straight bill and a distinctive rapid up-and-down probing action likened to a sewing machine, favoring coastal habitats.
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Ruff
A striking, highly dimorphic sandpiper whose males grow ornate, colorful neck ruffs and head tufts for elaborate communal courtship displays at a lek.
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Snowy Plover
A pale, delicate plover of Pacific and Gulf Coast beaches and interior salt flats, once considered the same species as the Old World Kentish Plover.
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Red Phalarope
The most brightly colored and most pelagic of the three phalaropes, with brick-red breeding females that spend most of the year far out at sea.
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Piping Plover
A tiny, pale, sand-colored plover of North American beaches, named for its plaintive piping whistle.
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Kentish Plover
A small, pale plover of Old World coasts and salt pans, the Eurasian and African counterpart of the American Snowy Plover.
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Hudsonian Godwit
A dark, elegant godwit famed for one of the longest nonstop migratory flights of any bird, connecting subarctic breeding grounds with wintering areas in southern South America.
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Greater Yellowlegs
A tall, elegant sandpiper with bright yellow legs and a loud, ringing alarm call that has earned it the nickname "telltale."
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Masked Lapwing
A large, loud Australasian lapwing with prominent yellow facial wattles and a sharp yellow spur on each wing, common in parks, pastures, and wetlands.
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Long-billed Curlew
North America's largest shorebird, unmistakable for its extremely long, dramatically downcurved bill and warm cinnamon-buff plumage.
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Least Sandpiper
The smallest shorebird in the world, a tiny brown sandpiper best distinguished from its similar relatives by its greenish-yellow legs.
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Marbled Godwit
A large, cinnamon-buff shorebird with a long, slightly upturned bicolored bill, breeding on North American prairie wetlands and wintering along coasts.
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Lesser Yellowlegs
A slim, delicate sandpiper with bright yellow legs, essentially a smaller, daintier version of the Greater Yellowlegs with a shorter, straighter bill.
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Green Sandpiper
A dark, sharply contrasting Eurasian sandpiper that flushes explosively from small woodland pools with a loud, ringing call and a bold white rump.
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Long-billed Dowitcher
A close relative of the Short-billed Dowitcher, best told apart by its sharp single-note call and preference for freshwater wetlands over coastal habitats.
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Killdeer
A widespread shorebird recognized by its double black breast bands and its dramatic 'broken-wing' display to lure predators from the nest.
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European Golden-Plover
A handsome gold-spangled plover of northern moors and tundra, wintering in large flocks on European farmland and estuaries.
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Dunlin
A medium-small sandpiper with a distinctive drooped bill tip and, in breeding plumage, a bold black belly patch, often seen in large swirling flocks over mudflats.
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Eurasian Curlew
The largest wader in Europe, with a long downcurved bill and a haunting, bubbling call that echoes across moorland and estuaries alike.
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Eurasian Oystercatcher
A boldly pied black-and-white shorebird with a long orange bill and pink legs, common on European coasts and estuaries.
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Crowned Lapwing
The Crowned Lapwing is a common African grassland plover easily recognized by the black-and-white ring encircling its head and its loud, repetitive calls.
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Common Sandpiper
The Old World counterpart of the Spotted Sandpiper, a small, constantly bobbing shorebird found along rivers, streams, and lakes across Europe, Asia, and Africa.
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Curlew Sandpiper
A graceful sandpiper with a long, evenly curved bill and, in breeding plumage, a rich brick-red body unlike any other small sandpiper.
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Common Redshank
A medium-sized, noisy sandpiper of European wetlands, nicknamed "the warden of the marshes" for its loud alarm calls, and easily told by its bright orange-red legs.
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Common Snipe
The Eurasian counterpart to Wilson's Snipe, a cryptically striped marsh bird with a very long bill, famed for the winnowing sound of its aerial display.
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Bar-tailed Godwit
A long-billed godwit famous for making the longest recorded nonstop migratory flights of any bird, connecting Arctic breeding grounds with wintering coasts across the Old World and Australasia.
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