Bird Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ birds — with size, habitat, diet, voice, behavior, and the field marks that tell them apart.
Scaly-breasted Lorikeet
A small, mostly green lorikeet of eastern Australia named for the scalloped yellow "scaly" pattern across its breast.
parrot
Striated Heron
A small, stocky, dark greenish heron found on tropical shorelines worldwide, notable for occasionally using bait to lure fish.
wading-bird
Sage Grouse
A large, sagebrush-dependent grouse known for the male's spectacular strutting display with inflated yellow air sacs on a lek.
gamebird
Red-footed Booby
The smallest and most variably plumaged booby, easily told by its bright red feet and habit of nesting in trees on remote tropical islands.
seabird
Northern Goshawk
The largest and most powerful accipiter, a fierce forest hawk of mature woodlands with a bold white eyebrow and blazing red eyes.
raptor
Northern Shoveler
A dabbling duck instantly identified by its oversized, spoon-shaped bill, used to filter tiny invertebrates and seeds from shallow water.
waterfowl
Sarus Crane
The world's tallest flying bird, a grey crane with a bare red head and neck, revered in South Asian culture as a symbol of marital fidelity.
wading-bird
Snowy Plover
A pale, delicate plover of Pacific and Gulf Coast beaches and interior salt flats, once considered the same species as the Old World Kentish Plover.
shorebird
Striated Pardalote
Australia's most widespread pardalote, a tiny streak-headed canopy bird with a distinctive repeated 'pick-it-up' call.
songbird
Paradise Shelduck
A large, strikingly dimorphic New Zealand duck, the female with a bright white head and chestnut body and the male mostly black with a grey-flecked back, commonly seen grazing on farmland.
waterfowl
Superb Bird-of-paradise
A montane bird-of-paradise whose male transforms into an oval black cape with a glowing blue breast shield during his famous dancing display.
songbird
New Zealand Bellbird
A plain olive-green New Zealand honeyeater renowned for its clear, melodious, bell-like song, often one of the first sounds heard at dawn in native forest.
songbird
Pink-footed Goose
A medium-sized grey goose with a compact dark head, pink legs and bill band, best known for spectacular wintering flocks in Britain.
waterfowl
Prairie Warbler
A bright yellow, tail-wagging warbler of shrubby old fields and scrub, with bold black facial markings and chestnut streaking on the back despite its misleading name.
songbird
Red-billed Chough
A glossy black corvid of coastal cliffs and mountains, easily recognized by its curved red bill, red legs and buoyant, acrobatic flight.
songbird
Short-toed Treecreeper
A close relative of the Eurasian Treecreeper, nearly identical in appearance but favouring broadleaf woodland at lower elevations and best identified by its distinct voice.
songbird
Patagonian Conure
A large, olive-brown South American parrot famous for nesting colonially in burrows dug into cliff faces.
parrot
Spur-winged Goose
The Spur-winged Goose is Africa's largest waterfowl species, named for the sharp spurs on its wings and its bare red facial skin.
waterfowl
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
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
Greylag Goose
A large bulky gray-brown goose, ancestor of most domestic geese, with a heavy orange bill.
waterfowl
Red-rumped Parrot
A common southeastern Australian grass parrot with bright green upperparts and a small red rump patch in males.
parrot
Marsh Tit
A small, plain brown-gray tit with a glossy black cap and neat black bib, closely resembling the Willow Tit but favoring drier, more mature woodland.
songbird
Purple Sunbird
A tiny, hyperactive sunbird whose breeding male glitters iridescent purple-black in the sun.
songbird
Kentish Plover
A small, pale plover of Old World coasts and salt pans, the Eurasian and African counterpart of the American Snowy Plover.
shorebird
Purple Gallinule
A vividly colored marsh bird with iridescent purple-blue plumage, a pale blue frontal shield, and oversized bright yellow feet.
wading-bird
Mallard
The most familiar and widespread duck in the world, with the male's glossy green head, yellow bill, and white neck ring recognizable on ponds nearly everywhere.
waterfowl
Ring-necked Duck
A compact diving duck best identified by the bold white ring on its bill rather than its subtle chestnut neck collar, along with a peaked head shape.
waterfowl
Shy Albatross
A pale, white-headed mollymawk that breeds only on a handful of islands off Tasmania, identifiable by its grey-washed nape and pale yellowish bill.
seabird
Piping Plover
A tiny, pale, sand-colored plover of North American beaches, named for its plaintive piping whistle.
shorebird
Kori Bustard
The Kori Bustard is Africa's heaviest flying bird, a stately grassland giant known for its intricate grey plumage and elaborate male courtship display.
other
Hamerkop
A uniquely shaped brown wading bird with a hammer-shaped head, famed for building enormous, elaborate stick nests.
wading-bird
Great Crested Flycatcher
A large canopy flycatcher of eastern woodlands with a lemon-yellow belly, rufous tail, and a loud, whistled call, famous for weaving shed snakeskin into its nest.
songbird
Little Egret
A small, elegant, all-white egret of the Old World with a slim black bill and striking yellow feet on black legs.
wading-bird
Smith's Longspur
A warmly buff-colored longspur with an unusual multi-male mating system, wintering in a very restricted range of south-central US grasslands.
songbird
Lazuli Bunting
The western counterpart of the Indigo Bunting, with males showing a sky-blue head and back, a warm orange breast band, and a white belly.
songbird
Lark Sparrow
A boldly patterned sparrow with a chestnut-and-white harlequin face and a distinctive rounded tail edged in white.
songbird
Mistle Thrush
Europe's largest common thrush, a bold, greyish, heavily spotted bird nicknamed the 'stormcock' for singing loudly even in wild, wintry weather.
songbird
Indian Peafowl
The magnificent national bird of India, famous for the male's iridescent blue plumage and enormous fan of eye-spotted train feathers.
gamebird
Heermann's Gull
A strikingly uniform slate-gray gull with a bright red bill, breeding almost entirely on a single island in Mexico's Gulf of California before dispersing north along the Pacific coast.
seabird
Ivory Gull
A striking, pure-white gull of the High Arctic pack ice, closely tied to sea ice and often found scavenging alongside polar bears at seal and whale carcasses.
seabird
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
Great Spotted Kiwi
The largest of the kiwi species, a shaggy grey, flightless bird of rugged forest and subalpine tussock in the northwest of New Zealand's South Island.
other
Musk Lorikeet
A small, fast-flying green lorikeet of southeastern Australia distinguished by its red face patch and namesake musky scent.
parrot
Magpie Tanager
A large, boldly black-and-white tanager with an unusually long tail, resembling a small magpie as it moves through forest edge and clearings.
songbird
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
Mandarin Duck
One of the world's most ornately colored waterfowl, the Mandarin Duck drake sports orange 'sail' feathers, a fan-shaped crest, and intricate facial patterning.
waterfowl
Masked Lapwing
A large, loud Australasian lapwing with prominent yellow facial wattles and a sharp yellow spur on each wing, common in parks, pastures, and wetlands.
shorebird