Bird Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ birds — with size, habitat, diet, voice, behavior, and the field marks that tell them apart.
Wreathed Hornbill
A large Asian hornbill with a low, corrugated casque and a bare throat pouch, colored yellow in males and blue in females, that plays a key role dispersing rainforest fruit seeds.
other
Crested Oropendola
A large, glossy black icterid with a chestnut rump, yellow outer tail feathers, and pale blue eyes, famous for its colonial hanging nests and gurgling display song.
songbird
Violet Sabrewing
One of the largest hummingbirds in its Central American range, with males glowing deep violet-blue overall and a heavy, slightly curved black bill.
hummingbird
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.
songbird
Purple-backed Fairywren
A close relative of the Variegated Fairywren adapted to Australia's arid interior, with breeding males showing purplish-blue tones and a small chestnut shoulder patch.
songbird
Grey Heron
A tall, pale grey wading bird widespread across the Old World, closely resembling North America's Great Blue Heron in shape and habits.
wading-bird
Black Grouse
A dramatic grouse famous for its communal spring "lek" displays, males glossy blue-black with a lyre-shaped tail, females mottled brown.
gamebird
Cerulean Warbler
A sky-blue, canopy-dwelling warbler of mature eastern forests, among the fastest-declining North American warblers due to habitat loss on both its breeding and wintering grounds.
songbird
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.
songbird
White-winged Dove
A stocky desert-southwest dove with a bold white wing stripe and a red eye ringed in blue, closely tied historically to the blooming and fruiting of saguaro cactus.
other
Varied Bunting
A desert bunting whose male appears deep purple-blue with a rosy nape patch in good light, but nearly black in shade, found in thorny borderland scrub.
songbird
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.
songbird
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.
seabird
Turquoise Cotinga
A dazzling, range-restricted cotinga whose male glows turquoise-blue with a rich purple throat and breast patch, found only in a small area of southern Central America.
songbird
Takahe
A large, flightless, deep blue-and-green New Zealand rail once thought extinct for fifty years until its dramatic rediscovery in remote Fiordland tussock country in 1948.
other
Montezuma Oropendola
A large Central American icterid with a chestnut body, black head, orange-tipped bill, and bare blue-and-pink facial skin, known for colonial hanging nests and loud gurgling calls.
songbird
Canvasback
A large diving duck with a distinctive sloping forehead profile, the drake showing a rich chestnut head, black breast, and pale whitish body.
waterfowl
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.
songbird
Canada Jay
The official current name for the Gray Jay, a fluffy, remarkably tame boreal-forest corvid famous for hoarding food and visiting campsites.
songbird
Long-eared Owl
A slender, secretive woodland owl with long, close-set ear tufts and a strikingly thin, upright roosting posture.
owl
Gray Jay
A fluffy, tame boreal-forest jay, officially renamed Canada Jay, known for its curiosity around campsites and its habit of hoarding food year-round.
songbird
Greater Scaup
A rounded-headed diving duck of large open waters, the drake showing a glossy greenish-black head and pale gray back, closely resembling the smaller Lesser Scaup.
waterfowl
Great Horned Owl
A powerful, large-eared owl found across nearly every habitat in the Americas, capable of taking prey larger than itself.
owl
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.
seabird