Bird Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ birds — with size, habitat, diet, voice, behavior, and the field marks that tell them apart.
Common Eider
A large, bulky sea duck of northern coasts, males boldly patterned black-and-white with a pale green nape and famous for their soft down.
waterfowl
Australasian Swamphen
A large, vividly deep-blue-and-purple waterbird with a red bill and frontal shield, often seen flicking its white tail as it walks.
wading-bird
Tennessee Warbler
A plain, energetic warbler with a gray head, white eyebrow stripe, and olive back, named for a stray specimen collected in Tennessee though it neither breeds nor regularly winters there.
songbird
Wood Duck
Widely considered one of the most strikingly colorful ducks in North America, the male wears an iridescent green-and-purple crest, chestnut breast, and bold white facial markings.
waterfowl
Red-crowned Crane
A rare, exceptionally elegant East Asian crane with mostly white plumage, a black neck, and a small patch of bare red skin on the crown, revered as a symbol of luck and longevity.
wading-bird
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
Black-capped Vireo
A small vireo of Texas oak scrub with a glossy black cap, bold white spectacles, and a red eye, a conservation success story after habitat restoration and cowbird control.
songbird
Blue-winged Warbler
A bright yellow warbler with blue-gray wings, white wingbars, and a black eyeline, whose expanding range increasingly overlaps and hybridizes with the closely related Golden-winged Warbler.
songbird
Wood Warbler
The brightest and most sharply patterned of the leaf warblers, with a vivid yellow throat and breast, white belly, and a distinctive accelerating trill song delivered while quivering its wings.
songbird
Red-necked Grebe
A robust, medium-large grebe with a rich chestnut neck and white cheek patch in breeding plumage, larger and bulkier than most other grebes.
waterfowl
Rock Ptarmigan
A circumpolar tundra grouse of barren, rocky terrain that turns snow-white in winter, with breeding males showing a distinctive black eye-line in spring.
gamebird
Red-eyed Vireo
A tireless singer of eastern and northern forests, nicknamed the 'preacher bird' for its endless repeated phrases, with a gray cap, white eyebrow, and red eye.
songbird
Pompadour Cotinga
A striking cotinga with males in deep magenta-purple plumage set off by bold white wings, found in the canopy of Amazonian and Guiana Shield forests.
songbird
Spotted Sandpiper
A small, constantly bobbing sandpiper of North American shorelines, easily recognized in breeding plumage by the bold dark spots covering its white underparts.
shorebird
Ruddy Duck
A small, chunky stiff-tailed diving duck; breeding males show a chestnut body, black cap, white cheeks, and a bright blue bill.
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
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
Manx Shearwater
A small, sharply black-and-white shearwater of the North Atlantic that skims low over waves with stiff wingbeats, nesting in burrows on grassy offshore islands.
seabird
Eurasian Spoonbill
An elegant white wading bird with a distinctive flat, spoon-shaped black-and-yellow bill, found sweeping shallow wetlands from Europe to Asia.
wading-bird
Crowned Lapwing
The Crowned Lapwing is a common African grassland plover easily recognized by the black-and-white ring encircling its head and its loud, repetitive calls.
shorebird
Australian Pelican
A large black-and-white pelican with the longest bill of any bird in the world, wandering widely across Australia's inland waterways in response to rainfall and flooding.
seabird
Bridled Tern
A pelagic tropical tern, browner and paler than its close relative the Sooty Tern, with a thin white 'bridle' line extending behind the eye.
seabird
Bewick's Wren
A slender, long-tailed wren with a bold white eyebrow, known for its varied song and once-widespread eastern range now largely lost.
songbird
Bank Swallow
The smallest North American swallow, brown above and white below with a crisp brown breast band, nesting colonially in burrows dug into sandy banks.
songbird