Bird Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ birds — with size, habitat, diet, voice, behavior, and the field marks that tell them apart.
Golden-winged Warbler
A gray-and-white warbler with a bold golden wing patch and yellow crown, once common in shrubby eastern habitat but now steeply declining and prone to hybridizing with Blue-winged Warbler.
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Black Rosy-Finch
The darkest of the three rosy-finches, breeding only in a narrow band of high central Rocky Mountain peaks and considered especially vulnerable to a warming climate.
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Ash-throated Flycatcher
A pale, dry-country flycatcher with a whitish-gray throat, soft yellow belly, and rufous tail, common in western deserts and scrub.
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Pacific-slope Flycatcher
A yellowish-toned Empidonax flycatcher of shady Pacific coastal forests, nearly identical to the Cordilleran Flycatcher and best told apart by range and call.
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Bendire's Thrasher
A pale-eyed desert thrasher with a shorter, straighter bill than its relatives, and distinct arrowhead-shaped breast spots.
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Say's Phoebe
A soft cinnamon-bellied flycatcher of open, dry western landscapes that often nests on cliffs, barns, and abandoned buildings.
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Painted Bunting
Often called the most colorful bird in North America, the male Painted Bunting displays an almost impossibly vivid patchwork of blue, green, and red.
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Cassin's Kingbird
A chunky gray-headed flycatcher of southwestern oak country, best told from the similar Western Kingbird by its darker chest and raspy voice.
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Hermit Thrush
A quietly spotted thrush known for its reddish tail, habit of slowly raising and lowering it, and hauntingly beautiful song.
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Bobolink
A grassland songbird famous for the breeding male's striking black-and-white "backward tuxedo" plumage and one of the longest migrations of any North American songbird.
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Northern Rough-winged Swallow
A plain brown swallow that nests in burrows in dirt banks, distinguished from other swallows by its uniform pale throat and lack of a breast band.
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Mountain Chickadee
A gray-and-black chickadee of western mountain conifer forests, distinguished by a bold white eyebrow stripe.
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Townsend's Solitaire
A slim, gray, upright thrush relative famous for defending juniper berry territories in winter and singing a long, warbling song.
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Orchard Oriole
The smallest North American oriole, with adult males showing a deep chestnut-and-black plumage rather than the bright orange of most other orioles.
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Mexican Chickadee
A high-elevation Mexican chickadee that barely reaches the United States in the mountains of southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico.
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Chihuahuan Raven
A desert grassland raven, smaller than the Common Raven, with white-based neck feathers normally hidden beneath black plumage.
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Red-eyed Vireo
A tireless singer of eastern and northern forests, nicknamed the 'preacher bird' for its endless repeated phrases, with a gray cap, white eyebrow, and red eye.
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Lapland Longspur
A circumpolar Arctic breeder that winters in large flocks across open fields, with striking black-faced breeding males and rusty-naped winter birds.
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Cliff Swallow
A colonial swallow famous for building gourd-shaped mud nests in dense clusters under bridges, eaves, and cliffs.
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Gray Vireo
A plain, uniformly gray, tail-flicking vireo of arid pinyon-juniper and chaparral country in the desert Southwest.
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Clark's Nutcracker
A pale gray high-mountain corvid famous for caching tens of thousands of pine seeds each year and for its remarkable spatial memory.
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Philadelphia Vireo
The smallest eastern vireo, with a yellow-washed underside and dark eye line, breeding in northern second-growth woodlands and often confused with Warbling Vireo and Tennessee Warbler.
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American Crow
A highly intelligent, all-black corvid famous for its adaptability, problem-solving, and complex social behavior.
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Fish Crow
A smaller, coastal cousin of the American Crow best told apart by its distinctive nasal, two-note call.
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Purple Martin
North America's largest swallow, a glossy blue-black aerial insectivore whose eastern population now nests almost entirely in birdhouses provided by people.
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Dickcissel
A grassland songbird resembling a small meadowlark, with breeding males showing a yellow breast, black bib, and a name derived from its buzzy, insect-like song.
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Great Kiskadee
A big, boldly patterned flycatcher named for its loud 'kis-ka-dee' call, often seen near water snatching insects, small fish, and fruit.
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Scott's Oriole
A yucca-loving oriole of the arid Southwest, with males showing lemon-yellow underparts contrasting against a solid black head and back.
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Red-faced Warbler
An unmistakable warbler with a brilliant red face and throat set against a gray body, found in high mountain forests of the Southwest.
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White-eyed Vireo
A skulking thicket-dweller with a pale eye, yellow spectacles, and a sharp, variable song, more often heard than seen.
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Island Scrub-Jay
A large, deep-blue scrub-jay found only on Santa Cruz Island off the California coast, the most range-restricted bird in the continental United States.
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Yellow-headed Blackbird
A striking marsh blackbird with a brilliant yellow head and breast on males, forming dense breeding colonies over open water.
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Acadian Flycatcher
A greenish, large-billed Empidonax flycatcher of shaded eastern forest ravines, identified by its explosive 'peet-sah' song.
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Blue Grosbeak
A stocky, deep-blue finch-like bird with rich chestnut wingbars and a heavy silver bill, favoring brushy fields across the southern and central United States.
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Alder Flycatcher
A plain, olive-brown Empidonax flycatcher of northern alder swamps and wet shrublands, virtually identical to the Willow Flycatcher except by voice.
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Common Raven
A massive, highly intelligent black corvid with a wedge-shaped tail and deep croaking voice, found across a vast range of wild habitats.
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Audubon's Oriole
A secretive yellow-and-black oriole with a full black hood, found in the United States only in the dense brushlands of the lower Rio Grande Valley.
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Warbling Vireo
A plain, nondescript gray-olive vireo best known for its rich, husky, warbled song delivered from high in deciduous trees.
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Verdin
A tiny, active desert songbird with a bright yellow head and a chestnut shoulder patch, famous for its bulky twig nests.
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Dusky Flycatcher
A gray-olive Empidonax flycatcher of open western mountain shrublands and forest edges, closely resembling several relatives and best told apart by voice.
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Lazuli Bunting
The western counterpart of the Indigo Bunting, with males showing a sky-blue head and back, a warm orange breast band, and a white belly.
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Vermilion Flycatcher
A tiny, brilliant scarlet-red flycatcher of southwestern deserts and riverbanks, among the most vividly colored songbirds in North America.
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American Pipit
A slender, streaky brown songbird of open ground that constantly bobs its tail as it walks.
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Yellow-throated Vireo
A canopy-dwelling eastern vireo with a bright yellow throat and spectacles, olive back, and a slow, burry song.
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Rusty Blackbird
A boreal-breeding blackbird that turns rusty-edged in fall plumage, now one of the most steeply declining songbirds in North America.
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Western Kingbird
A pale gray-headed, lemon-bellied flycatcher commonly seen perched on wires and fence posts across open western landscapes.
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Yellow-bellied Flycatcher
The brightest and most yellow of the eastern Empidonax flycatchers, breeding in boggy boreal forest and giving a soft, plaintive whistled call.
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Pyrrhuloxia
A close desert relative of the Northern Cardinal, gray overall with red highlights and a stubby, parrot-like yellow bill, common in arid brushland of the Southwest.
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