Bird Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ birds — with size, habitat, diet, voice, behavior, and the field marks that tell them apart.
Wattled Jacana
A chestnut-and-black marsh bird with extraordinarily long toes that let it walk across floating lily pads, notable for its role-reversed breeding system.
wading-bird
Wompoo Fruit Dove
The largest of Australia's fruit doves, a spectacular rainforest bird with a grey head, deep purple-magenta breast, yellow-green back, and yellow-striped belly.
other
Speckled Mousebird
The Speckled Mousebird is a common African bird with a long tail and soft grey-brown plumage that scurries through foliage in acrobatic little flocks, mouse-like.
other
Sunbittern
A cryptically patterned streamside bird that, when it spreads its wings, reveals stunning chestnut, black, and white "sunburst" eye-spots used in dramatic display.
wading-bird
Chimney Swift
A dark, cigar-shaped aerial bird that nests almost exclusively in chimneys across eastern North America, spending nearly its entire life on the wing.
other
Willow Ptarmigan
A tundra grouse and Alaska's state bird, turning pure white in winter and rich mottled rufous-brown in summer, with males retaining a chestnut head and neck longest into spring.
gamebird
African Harrier-Hawk
A grey African raptor famed for its unusually flexible, double-jointed legs, which let it reach deep into tree holes and weaver-bird nests to extract prey.
raptor
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.
shorebird
Whooping Crane
North America's tallest bird, a rare, snow-white crane with black wingtips that has become a flagship symbol of wildlife conservation after nearly going extinct.
wading-bird
Waxwing
A crested, silky pinkish-grey bird with a black mask, yellow-tipped tail, and waxy red wingtips, best known for irruptive winter berry-feasting flocks.
songbird
Pileated Woodpecker
North America's largest common woodpecker, a crow-sized, mostly black bird with a flaming red crest, famous for excavating large rectangular holes in dead trees.
woodpecker
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.
shorebird
Meadow Pipit
A streaky, unassuming ground bird of open moorland and grassland, often first noticed by its rising, parachuting song-flight or its thin call as it flushes underfoot.
songbird
Hoatzin
A bizarre, prehistoric-looking bird with a spiky crest, bare blue face, and a highly unusual digestive system that ferments leaves like a cow, giving it a distinctive odor.
other
Great Blue Heron
North America's largest and most widespread heron, a tall blue-grey wading bird often seen standing motionless at the water's edge waiting to strike prey.
wading-bird
Black-faced Antthrush
A plump, ground-dwelling forest bird with a black face and a short cocked tail, more often heard than seen as it walks quietly through leaf litter.
songbird
Common Nightingale
A plain brown bird famed above all for its powerful, richly varied song, often delivered at night as well as by day from dense scrub cover.
songbird
Merlin
A compact, fast-flying falcon that chases down small birds with relentless, low-level pursuit rather than a high stoop.
raptor
White Wagtail
A slim, long-tailed black, white, and grey bird, constantly wagging its tail as it darts about open ground catching insects, equally at home in farmland or city centres.
songbird
Stitchbird
A small, striking New Zealand honeyeater-like bird, the male boldly patterned in black, yellow, and white, now surviving only on predator-free islands and in reintroduced mainland sanctuaries.
songbird
Cattle Egret
A stocky, short-necked white egret closely associated with grazing livestock, whose remarkable natural range expansion made it one of the most successful bird colonizations in modern history.
wading-bird
Australian Owlet-nightjar
A small, big-eyed nocturnal bird with soft grey-brown mottled plumage and whisker-like facial bristles, often seen peering from a tree hollow entrance by day.
other
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.
seabird
Hill Myna
A glossy black forest myna with vivid yellow head wattles, renowned as one of the most accomplished vocal mimics among wild birds.
songbird