Bird Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ birds — with size, habitat, diet, voice, behavior, and the field marks that tell them apart.
Grey Wagtail
A slender, strikingly long-tailed wagtail with bright yellow underparts, closely tied to fast-flowing streams and rivers where it bobs along rocks and weirs.
songbird
Java Sparrow
A sleek grey-and-white estrildid finch with a bold black head, white cheek patch, and a large pink bill, native to Indonesia and widely introduced elsewhere.
songbird
Lesser Prairie-Chicken
A small, pale prairie grouse of sandy southern-plains grassland, closely related to but smaller and paler than the Greater Prairie-Chicken, with reddish-orange display air sacs.
gamebird
Green Bee-eater
A slender emerald-green bird with elongated central tail feathers and a black eye stripe, an agile aerial hunter of bees and wasps.
other
Masked Booby
The largest booby species, brilliant white with black flight feathers, a dark facial mask, and a bright yellow bill.
seabird
Jungle Myna
A grey-brown myna with a distinctive tuft of feathers on the forehead and pale blue-white eyes, common across South and Southeast Asian towns and farmland.
songbird
Great Reed Warbler
A large, powerful reed-dwelling warbler with a loud, harsh, croaking song that carries far across the reedbeds it calls home.
songbird
Least Flycatcher
The smallest and most vocal of the eastern Empidonax flycatchers, easily located by its emphatic, repetitive 'che-BEK' call.
songbird
Mealy Parrot
The largest of the Amazon parrots, with predominantly green plumage and a dusty, mealy-looking bloom over the nape and back that gives the species its name.
parrot
Greater Yellowlegs
A tall, elegant sandpiper with bright yellow legs and a loud, ringing alarm call that has earned it the nickname "telltale."
shorebird
Macaroni Penguin
A crested penguin with flamboyant golden-yellow plumes sweeping back from the forehead, once among the most abundant penguins on Earth.
seabird
Great Potoo
The largest potoo, a nocturnal bird that perches upright on bare branches by day, camouflaged as a broken stub, and gives an eerie, growling call at night.
other
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
Montezuma Quail
A round, secretive southwestern quail with a bold black-and-white harlequin facial pattern that renders it nearly invisible in grass.
gamebird
Marabou Stork
A huge African scavenger stork with a bald pink head, massive bill, and one of the largest wingspans of any living land bird.
wading-bird
Guianan Toucanet
A small toucan of the Guiana Shield forests, with males showing a black head and a mostly greenish bill, and females bearing a rich chestnut cap.
other
Indian Skimmer
A striking black-capped skimmer of South Asian rivers, now Endangered due to widespread loss of undisturbed sandbar habitat along major waterways.
seabird
Greater American Flamingo
The most vividly pink flamingo species, found in coastal wetlands of the Caribbean, Yucatan, and Galapagos.
wading-bird
Iceland Gull
A pale, gentle-looking Arctic gull, smaller and more delicate than the similar Glaucous Gull, that winters along the North Atlantic coast and Great Lakes.
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
Kakapo
A flightless, nocturnal, moss-green New Zealand parrot and the heaviest parrot in the world, now surviving only on intensively managed predator-free islands.
parrot
King Eider
An Arctic sea duck whose males sport a bulbous orange bill knob and a colorful blue-gray and mint-green head.
waterfowl
Indian Ringneck Parakeet
A slender, long-tailed green parakeet native to the Indian subcontinent, best known for the males' distinctive rose-and-black neck ring.
parrot
Mute Swan
A large, all-white swan with an orange bill and black knob, famous for its graceful, S-curved neck and elegant presence on lakes and parks.
waterfowl
Great Frigatebird
A widespread tropical seabird with long angular wings and a forked tail, males displaying a striking inflatable scarlet throat pouch.
seabird
Green-cheeked Conure
A small South American parakeet with a scaly grey-brown chest, green cheeks, and a deep maroon tail.
parrot
Masked Lovebird
A small East African parrot with a dark blackish-brown head, yellow collar, and a bold white eye-ring.
parrot
House Sparrow
A stocky, chunky-billed sparrow closely tied to human settlements, with males showing a gray crown, chestnut nape, and black bib.
songbird
Little Corella
A gregarious white cockatoo of inland Australia with pale blue-grey eye-rings, often seen in huge, noisy flocks.
parrot
Juniper Titmouse
A plain gray, crested titmouse of pinyon-juniper woodlands across the Great Basin and interior West.
songbird
Indian Roller
A stocky, brownish bird that erupts into brilliant flashes of blue when it takes flight, prized as a state bird symbol across India.
other
Guianan Cock-of-the-rock
A brilliant yellow-orange bird of the Guiana Shield with a striking disc-shaped crest, famed for the males' elaborate lek courtship displays.
other
Hooded Crane
A small, dark East Asian crane with a white head and neck resembling a hood, a red crown patch, and one of the most geographically concentrated wintering populations of any crane.
wading-bird
Marsh Wren
A small, energetic wren of cattail marshes, known for its loud, gurgling song and the male's habit of building multiple decoy nests.
songbird
House Martin
A glossy blue-black swallow relative with a clean white rump and underparts, famous for building mud-cup nests under building eaves.
songbird
Greater White-fronted Goose
A brown goose with a white patch around the base of the bill and irregular black barring on the belly.
waterfowl
Mew Gull
A small, gentle-faced gull of the Pacific Northwest, recently split from the Eurasian Common Gull and now officially known as the Short-billed Gull.
seabird
Great Tit
The largest and most common European tit, with a glossy black head, white cheeks, and a bold black stripe down its yellow breast.
songbird
Great Black-backed Gull
The largest gull in the world, an imposing, dark-backed predator of the North Atlantic coast that preys on other birds as readily as it scavenges.
seabird
Great Grey Owl
The tallest owl in North America by length, a huge grey ghost of the northern forests famed for its enormous facial disc and vole-hunting by sound.
owl
Green Wood Hoopoe
A glossy, iridescent African bird with a long curved red bill and tail, known for its raucous cackling calls and tight-knit family groups.
other
Long-billed Curlew
North America's largest shorebird, unmistakable for its extremely long, dramatically downcurved bill and warm cinnamon-buff plumage.
shorebird
Greater Blue-eared Starling
A widespread African starling with glossy blue-green plumage and a violet-blue ear patch, often confused with the closely related Lesser Blue-eared Starling.
songbird
Narcissus Flycatcher
A small, brilliantly colored flycatcher; the male combines black upperparts with a vivid yellow-orange throat, breast, and rump.
songbird
Great Egret
A tall, elegant, all-white heron with a long yellow bill and black legs, found on wetlands across nearly every continent.
wading-bird
Laughing Dove
A small, slender pinkish-brown dove with a black-and-rufous speckled necklace patch and a soft, chuckling, laugh-like call.
other
Mountain Quail
A large, secretive Pacific-coast quail known for its long, straight head plume and rich chestnut flank stripes.
gamebird
Montagu's Harrier
The slimmest and most elegant of the harriers, a long-distance migrant that increasingly nests in arable farmland.
raptor