Bird Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ birds — with size, habitat, diet, voice, behavior, and the field marks that tell them apart.
Cedar Waxwing
A sleek, crested, silky-brown songbird with a yellow-tipped tail and waxy red wingtips that travels in nomadic flocks following fruit crops.
songbird
Canyon Towhee
A drab, grayish-brown desert towhee closely resembling the California Towhee but with a faint breast spot and rustier crown.
songbird
Gray-headed Chickadee
A rare, remote-dwelling chickadee of far-northern taiga and tundra edge, known in Eurasia as the Siberian Tit.
songbird
Orange-crowned Warbler
A plain, drab olive warbler with a faint eyeline and blurry streaking below, whose namesake orange crown patch is usually hidden from view.
songbird
Horned Lark
A ground-loving open-country songbird named for the tiny black feather tufts, or "horns," on its head.
songbird
European Starling
A stocky, iridescent black songbird introduced to North America in the 1890s, known for its speckled winter plumage, versatile mimicry, and massive flocks.
songbird
Sprague's Pipit
A secretive, pale grassland songbird of the northern Great Plains, best known for its extraordinary high, circling flight song.
songbird
Carolina Chickadee
A small southeastern chickadee nearly identical to the Black-capped Chickadee, best told apart by its faster four-note song.
songbird
Bushtit
A tiny, plain gray-brown songbird that travels in noisy, tumbling flocks and builds an elaborate hanging sock-like nest.
songbird
Brown Thrasher
A large, rich reddish-brown songbird with heavy dark streaking below and bright yellow eyes, known for an extensive repertoire of paired song phrases.
songbird
Henslow's Sparrow
A secretive prairie sparrow with a large flat head, olive face, and one of the most unimpressive songs of any North American bird.
songbird
Blue Jay
A bold, crested songbird in vivid blue, white, and black, known for its loud calls and habit of caching acorns.
songbird
Rock Wren
A pale, grayish-brown wren of arid rocky landscapes, known for bobbing on boulders and building pebble-paved nest paths.
songbird
Red-breasted Nuthatch
A tiny, tin-horn-voiced nuthatch of conifer forests, with rusty-orange underparts and a bold black eye-stripe bordered by white.
songbird
Nashville Warbler
A small, active warbler with a gray head, bold white eyering, olive back, and bright yellow underparts, occurring in two disjunct eastern and western breeding populations.
songbird
Green-tailed Towhee
A shy, olive-green towhee with a rufous cap and white throat, the smallest and most colorful of the towhees.
songbird
White-breasted Nuthatch
A compact, short-tailed bird with blue-gray upperparts and white underparts, famous for creeping headfirst down tree trunks.
songbird
Eastern Wood-Pewee
A quiet, olive-gray flycatcher of eastern woodlands, best known for its plaintive, slurred "pee-a-wee" song.
songbird
Dark-eyed Junco
A small, highly variable sparrow-relative often called a "snowbird," typically dark gray or brown above with a contrasting white belly and pink bill.
songbird
Common Grackle
A large, iridescent blackbird with a long keel-shaped tail and pale yellow eyes, common across eastern and central North America.
songbird
Nelson's Sparrow
A secretive marsh sparrow with an orange face triangle and soft, blurry streaking, breeding in both interior prairie marshes and coastal salt marsh.
songbird
Barn Swallow
The most widespread swallow in the world, easily known by its deeply forked tail, steel-blue back, and rufous throat.
songbird
Louisiana Waterthrush
A large, thrush-like ground warbler tied closely to clear, fast-moving forest streams, constantly bobbing its tail as it walks along the water's edge.
songbird
Cactus Wren
The largest North American wren, a bold, heavily spotted desert bird that nests within the spiny protection of cholla and cactus.
songbird
Northern Waterthrush
A boreal-breeding, thrush-like warbler of still-water wetlands and swamps, closely resembling Louisiana Waterthrush but favoring quieter water and showing a finely streaked throat.
songbird
Canyon Wren
A rock-clinging wren with a bright white throat and rusty body, famous for its cascading, whistled song echoing through canyons.
songbird
Blue-winged Warbler
A bright yellow warbler with blue-gray wings, white wingbars, and a black eyeline, whose expanding range increasingly overlaps and hybridizes with the closely related Golden-winged Warbler.
songbird
Brown-headed Nuthatch
A tiny brown-capped nuthatch of southeastern pine forests, notable as one of the few birds known to use tools.
songbird
American Tree Sparrow
A rusty-capped sparrow with a bicolored bill and a dark central breast spot, a true winter visitor to much of North America despite its name.
songbird
Palm Warbler
A ground-loving, tail-bobbing warbler with a rusty cap in breeding plumage, often seen walking on open ground far more than most other warblers.
songbird
Worm-eating Warbler
A plain buffy warbler with bold black head stripes, best known for its habit of probing curled dead leaves for caterpillars rather than eating earthworms.
songbird
California Towhee
A plain, uniformly brown towhee with a rusty undertail, common in California backyards and known for its sharp metallic chip call.
songbird
Red-winged Blackbird
A glossy black marsh bird whose males display bold red-and-yellow shoulder patches while perched and singing atop cattails.
songbird
Chipping Sparrow
A small, slender sparrow with a bright rufous cap, black eye-line, and clean gray underparts, common in yards with conifers.
songbird
Tree Swallow
A gleaming blue-green and white cavity-nesting swallow, one of the earliest swallows to arrive each spring and among the most cold-hardy.
songbird
Lincoln's Sparrow
A shy, finely streaked sparrow with a buffy breast band, often described as the best-dressed sparrow, that skulks low in dense cover.
songbird
MacGillivray's Warbler
The western counterpart of the Mourning Warbler, a gray-hooded skulker distinguished by bold broken white eye-crescents above and below the eye.
songbird
Savannah Sparrow
A streaky, ground-dwelling sparrow with a yellow eyebrow patch and short notched tail, widespread across open grassy habitats in North America.
songbird
Grasshopper Sparrow
A small, flat-headed, short-tailed sparrow of grasslands whose thin insect-like song resembles a grasshopper's buzz.
songbird
Bridled Titmouse
A small, boldly patterned titmouse with a striking black-and-white "bridled" facial pattern, found in oak canyons of the Southwest.
songbird
Willow Flycatcher
A plain, greenish-brown Empidonax flycatcher best identified by its sneezy 'fitz-bew' song, breeding in dense willow thickets across North America.
songbird
Wilson's Warbler
A small, bright yellow warbler with an olive back and, in males, a neat round black cap, often seen flicking its tail as it forages actively in low shrubs.
songbird
Wrentit
A drab, long-tailed skulker of Pacific coastal chaparral, far more often heard than seen, with a distinctive bouncing-ball song.
songbird
American Goldfinch
A small finch famous for the male's brilliant lemon-yellow breeding plumage and black cap, wings, and tail.
songbird
Altamira Oriole
The largest oriole in the United States, a bright orange bird found only in the Rio Grande Valley of extreme south Texas, famous for weaving the longest hanging nest of any North American bird.
songbird
Black-throated Sparrow
A striking desert sparrow with a bold black throat framed by crisp white eyebrow and whisker stripes.
songbird
Canada Warbler
A slate-gray and yellow warbler notable for the bold necklace of black streaking across its breast and the yellow "spectacles" framing its eyes.
songbird
Lark Sparrow
A boldly patterned sparrow with a chestnut-and-white harlequin face and a distinctive rounded tail edged in white.
songbird