Bird Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ birds — with size, habitat, diet, voice, behavior, and the field marks that tell them apart.
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
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
Eurasian Nuthatch
A compact, blue-grey woodland bird famous for its ability to climb head-first down tree trunks, and for wedging nuts into bark crevices to hammer them open.
songbird
Yellow-billed Cuckoo
A slender, secretive woodland bird nicknamed the 'rain crow' for its habit of calling before summer storms, marked by a downcurved yellow lower bill and rufous flight feathers.
other
Great Bowerbird
The largest bowerbird species, plain grey-brown overall with a usually concealed lilac-pink nape crest, famed for building and decorating the largest avenue bowers of any bird.
songbird
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
Paradise Tanager
One of the most vividly multicolored birds in the Amazon, with a turquoise head, black back, sky-blue underparts, and a glowing yellow-to-red rump.
songbird
Regent Bowerbird
A striking rainforest songbird; the male is patterned in bold black and rich golden-yellow, one of the most vividly colored birds of eastern Australia.
songbird
Brown-headed Cowbird
A brood-parasitic blackbird whose glossy brown head contrasts with the male's black body, famous for laying eggs in other birds' nests.
songbird
Caspian Tern
The largest tern in the world, a gull-sized bird with a massive coral-red bill and a harsh, crow-like call, found on coasts and large lakes across every continent except Antarctica.
seabird
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
California Condor
North America's largest flying land bird, an enormous black scavenger with a naked orange-pink head, brought back from the brink of extinction through intensive captive breeding.
raptor
Bar-tailed Godwit
A long-billed godwit famous for making the longest recorded nonstop migratory flights of any bird, connecting Arctic breeding grounds with wintering coasts across the Old World and Australasia.
shorebird
Roseate Tern
A slender, pale tern with very long tail streamers and a faint rosy blush on the breast, prized by birders for its elegant, almost ghostly flight.
seabird
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.
songbird
Green Heron
A small, stocky, secretive heron with a dark greenish back, chestnut neck, and a reputation as one of the few birds known to use tools to catch fish.
wading-bird
Tawny Eagle
A variably colored savanna eagle of Africa known for its highly opportunistic feeding, from scavenging carcasses to stealing prey from other birds.
raptor
Goldcrest
One of Europe's smallest birds, a tiny olive-green sprite with a vivid black-bordered crown stripe, constantly flitting through conifer foliage.
songbird
Tomtit
A small, big-headed New Zealand forest bird, the male boldly black-and-white or black-and-yellow depending on region, often seen perched quietly before darting after insects.
songbird
New Zealand Robin
A tame, upright New Zealand forest bird, dark grey-black above with a pale belly, well known for boldly following walkers and foraging on the forest floor within easy view.
songbird
Golden Bowerbird
The smallest bowerbird species, restricted to Queensland's Wet Tropics uplands; the male is golden-yellow and olive-brown and builds the tallest maypole-style bower relative to its size of any bird.
songbird
Australian Brushturkey
A large, black-bodied mound-building bird with a bare red head and neck and a yellow throat wattle, well known for the huge leaf-litter mounds it builds to incubate its eggs.
gamebird