Bird Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ birds — with size, habitat, diet, voice, behavior, and the field marks that tell them apart.
Purple Honeycreeper
A small tanager relative whose male plumage is a deep, velvety purple set off by black wings and bright yellow legs.
songbird
Silver-beaked Tanager
A velvety deep-red South American tanager with a glowing crimson rump and a pale, silvery lower mandible that gives the species its name.
songbird
Red-naped Sapsucker
A western sapsucker closely resembling the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, distinguished by a red patch extending onto the nape, and closely tied to mountain aspen groves.
woodpecker
Spotted Owl
A dark-eyed, chocolate-brown forest owl closely tied to old-growth woodland and famous as a flagship species for old-growth conservation debates.
owl
Oak Titmouse
A plain gray-brown, crested songbird tightly tied to oak woodlands of California, notable for its lack of bold field marks.
songbird
North Island Brown Kiwi
The most numerous kiwi species and an enduring national symbol of New Zealand, a flightless, nocturnal, shaggy brown bird that hunts invertebrates by smell.
other
Owl Finch
A small Australian grass finch with a distinctive white, black-ringed face resembling an owl's, paired with two crisp black breast bars.
songbird
Olive Warbler
A pine-forest specialist with a tawny-orange head and black mask, now classified in its own unique family separate from true warblers.
songbird
Red-billed Leiothrix
A vividly colored, red-billed songbird nicknamed the Pekin Robin, olive-green above with orange-yellow throat and colorful wing patches.
songbird
Pied Wagtail
The black-backed British and Irish form of the White Wagtail, a familiar sight bobbing its long tail across car parks, farmyards, and riverside paths.
songbird
Southern Masked Weaver
A common, widespread southern African weaver whose breeding males are bright yellow with a black face mask and red eyes, known for its intricately woven grass nests.
songbird
Senegal Parrot
A compact West African parrot with a grey head, green back, and a bold yellow-to-orange V on its belly.
parrot
Rufous Whistler
A grey-backed, rufous-breasted songbird whose loud, cheerful, far-carrying whistled song is a signature sound of Australian woodlands.
songbird
New Zealand Fantail
A tiny, energetic New Zealand bird best known for its wide, fan-shaped tail and its habit of following walkers through the bush to snap up disturbed insects.
songbird
Red-legged Honeycreeper
A small, vivid violet-blue tanager relative with bright red legs and a slender curved bill, common at flowering and fruiting trees.
songbird
Redwing
The smallest European thrush, easily told by its bold cream eyebrow stripe and warm red-orange flanks, arriving in large flocks each winter from the north.
songbird
Ortolan Bunting
A warm-toned migratory bunting with a grey-green head, yellow throat, and pink-buff underparts, breeding across open, sun-baked farmland of Europe.
songbird
Southern Cassowary
A large, flightless rainforest bird with glossy black plumage, a vivid blue-and-red neck, and a tall bony casque atop its head.
other
Ring-billed Gull
A medium-sized, highly adaptable gull common far from the coast, easily told from larger gulls by its yellow legs and the black ring encircling its bill.
seabird
Northern Raven
The largest of all songbirds, an immense, all-black corvid with a heavy bill, shaggy throat feathers and a wedge-shaped tail.
songbird
Spotted Pardalote
A tiny, jewel-like bird spangled with white spots, best detected by its high, rhythmic three-note call from the treetops.
songbird
Spectacled Owl
A large, dark-headed owl named for the bold white "spectacles" that ring its eyes, with a strikingly different all-white juvenile plumage.
owl
Oriental Turtle Dove
A large, richly patterned dove with a scaly, chestnut-and-black back and a distinctive black-and-white striped neck patch.
other
Green-headed Tanager
A jewel-toned Atlantic Forest tanager with a shimmering turquoise-green head, golden back band, and orange throat patch.
songbird
Red-capped Cardinal
A striking black-and-white bird with a brilliant red head, throat, and nape, commonly seen along Amazonian rivers and lake edges despite not being a true cardinal.
songbird
Southern Brown Kiwi
A shaggy, flightless, nocturnal New Zealand kiwi of the South Island and Stewart Island, known locally as tokoeka, that finds food entirely by smell.
other
Rhinoceros Hornbill
A striking Southeast Asian rainforest hornbill named for its large, upward-curving red-and-yellow casque resembling a rhinoceros horn.
other
Northern Gannet
The largest seabird in the North Atlantic, gleaming white with black wingtips and a golden-buff wash on the head, famous for spectacular high-speed plunge dives after fish.
seabird
Superb Fruit Dove
A small, jewel-colored fruit dove; the male combines a purple crown, orange nape, grey chest band, and green back into a dazzling patchwork of color.
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
Ruby-throated Hummingbird
The only hummingbird that regularly breeds in eastern North America, with males showing a brilliant iridescent ruby-red throat that can flash black in poor light.
hummingbird
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
Pacific Loon
A mid-sized loon with a smooth pale grey nape and a crisp black chin strap, common along the Pacific coast in winter.
seabird
Splendid Fairywren
A small songbird of Australia's dry interior whose breeding males turn an almost impossibly vivid all-over cobalt and violet blue.
songbird
Sulphur-crested Cockatoo
A large, all-white Australasian cockatoo with a tall, upright yellow crest and a loud, raucous voice.
parrot
Snow Goose
A bright white goose with black wingtips, often traveling in enormous flocks; a dark 'blue' color morph also exists.
waterfowl
Ring Ouzel
A blackbird of high, wild upland moors and crags, the male distinguished by a striking white crescent across the breast.
songbird
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.
shorebird
Pink-backed Pelican
A relatively small, drab greyish pelican of African wetlands, named for a subtle pink tinge on the back that is often difficult to see in the field.
seabird
Sun Parakeet
A dazzling small parakeet clothed in vivid golden-yellow and orange, with green and blue flight feathers, now endangered in the wild due to trapping for the pet trade.
parrot
Southern Fiscal
A black-and-white shrike of southern Africa known for impaling prey on thorns and barbed wire as a food cache.
songbird
Northern Hawk Owl
A long-tailed, falcon-shaped boreal owl that hunts by day from exposed treetop perches like a hawk.
owl
Roseate Spoonbill
A vivid pink wading bird with an unmistakable spoon-shaped bill, often mistaken for a flamingo when glimpsed at a distance in coastal marshes.
wading-bird
Scarlet Honeyeater
A tiny, brilliant honeyeater in which the male is a vivid scarlet-red with black wings, one of the smallest and most colorful honeyeaters in Australia.
songbird
Ruff
A striking, highly dimorphic sandpiper whose males grow ornate, colorful neck ruffs and head tufts for elaborate communal courtship displays at a lek.
shorebird
Straw-necked Ibis
A striking black-and-white Australian ibis famous for forming huge nomadic flocks that follow outbreaks of grasshoppers and locusts.
wading-bird
Sacred Ibis
A striking white ibis with a bare black head and neck, revered in ancient Egypt, now widespread across African wetlands and farmland.
wading-bird
Scarlet-rumped Tanager
A glossy black Central American tanager with a glowing scarlet rump patch; males and females differ strikingly in plumage.
songbird