Bird Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ birds — with size, habitat, diet, voice, behavior, and the field marks that tell them apart.
Lark Sparrow
A boldly patterned sparrow with a chestnut-and-white harlequin face and a distinctive rounded tail edged in white.
songbird
Greater Yellowlegs
A tall, elegant sandpiper with bright yellow legs and a loud, ringing alarm call that has earned it the nickname "telltale."
shorebird
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
Montezuma Quail
A round, secretive southwestern quail with a bold black-and-white harlequin facial pattern that renders it nearly invisible in grass.
gamebird
Masked Lovebird
A small East African parrot with a dark blackish-brown head, yellow collar, and a bold white eye-ring.
parrot
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
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
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
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
Greater American Flamingo
The most vividly pink flamingo species, found in coastal wetlands of the Caribbean, Yucatan, and Galapagos.
wading-bird
Great Frigatebird
A widespread tropical seabird with long angular wings and a forked tail, males displaying a striking inflatable scarlet throat pouch.
seabird
Hamerkop
A uniquely shaped brown wading bird with a hammer-shaped head, famed for building enormous, elaborate stick nests.
wading-bird
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Green-cheeked Conure
A small South American parakeet with a scaly grey-brown chest, green cheeks, and a deep maroon tail.
parrot
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
House Sparrow
A stocky, chunky-billed sparrow closely tied to human settlements, with males showing a gray crown, chestnut nape, and black bib.
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
Juniper Titmouse
A plain gray, crested titmouse of pinyon-juniper woodlands across the Great Basin and interior West.
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
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
Little Corella
A gregarious white cockatoo of inland Australia with pale blue-grey eye-rings, often seen in huge, noisy flocks.
parrot
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
King Bird-of-paradise
A tiny, jewel-like bird-of-paradise with a crimson-and-white body and two wire-thin tail plumes tipped with emerald discs.
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
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
Long-billed Curlew
North America's largest shorebird, unmistakable for its extremely long, dramatically downcurved bill and warm cinnamon-buff plumage.
shorebird
Mountain Quail
A large, secretive Pacific-coast quail known for its long, straight head plume and rich chestnut flank stripes.
gamebird
Great Jacamar
The largest and heaviest-billed jacamar, glittering coppery-green with a chestnut belly, favoring the shaded interior of lowland rainforest.
other
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
Horned Puffin
A black-and-white North Pacific puffin with a bright orange-and-yellow bill and a small dark 'horn' of skin above each eye.
seabird
Green Peafowl
A large, iridescent Southeast Asian peafowl with scaly green-and-bronze body plumage and a tall wire-like crest, now endangered from hunting and habitat loss.
gamebird
Grey Currawong
A large, grey-toned currawong of southern Australia's forests and woodlands, with a yellow eye and white wing and tail markings.
songbird
Macaroni Penguin
A crested penguin with flamboyant golden-yellow plumes sweeping back from the forehead, once among the most abundant penguins on Earth.
seabird
Louisiana Waterthrush
A large, thrush-like ground warbler tied closely to clear, fast-moving forest streams, constantly bobbing its tail as it walks along the water's edge.
songbird
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
Japanese Bush Warbler
A skulking, plain olive-brown warbler far better known for its explosive, flute-like spring song than for its rarely seen plumage.
songbird
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
Hutton's Vireo
A plain, year-round resident vireo of western oak woodlands, easily confused with the Ruby-crowned Kinglet, with a broken white eye-ring and two wing bars.
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
Least Sandpiper
The smallest shorebird in the world, a tiny brown sandpiper best distinguished from its similar relatives by its greenish-yellow legs.
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
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