Bird Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ birds — with size, habitat, diet, voice, behavior, and the field marks that tell them apart.
King Vulture
A large, boldly colored Neotropical vulture with a strikingly multicolored bare head that dominates carcasses in tropical forests.
raptor
Greater Racket-tailed Drongo
A glossy black forest drongo with a spiky forehead crest and two extraordinary wire-like tail streamers ending in rackets.
songbird
Great Spotted Woodpecker
A striking black-and-white woodpecker with a bold red vent patch, the most widespread and familiar woodpecker across Europe.
woodpecker
Hoatzin
A bizarre, prehistoric-looking bird with a spiky crest, bare blue face, and a highly unusual digestive system that ferments leaves like a cow, giving it a distinctive odor.
other
Laughing Kookaburra
A large, stocky Australian kingfisher famous for its raucous, human-like laughing call.
other
Greater Coucal
A large, crow-sized cuckoo-family bird with glossy black body, chestnut wings, and a deep, resonant booming call.
other
Little Penguin
The world's smallest penguin species, with slate-blue upperparts and white underparts, that comes ashore only after dark to avoid predators.
seabird
Hooded Oriole
A slender, long-tailed oriole strongly associated with palm trees, with males showing bright orange-yellow plumage and a black face and bib.
songbird
Great Crested Grebe
A large, elegant Old World grebe with ornate double head plumes and chestnut-and-black facial tippets, famed for its elaborate courtship dances.
waterfowl
Least Bittern
The smallest heron in North America, an elusive marsh dweller that clambers through cattails with the help of long grasping toes.
wading-bird
Little Blue Penguin
The world's smallest penguin, with slate-blue upperparts, found nesting in burrows along the coasts of southern Australia and New Zealand.
seabird
Little Bee-eater
A tiny, brilliantly colored African bee-eater with a green back, yellow throat, and black gorget, often seen perched low over grassland.
other
Harris's Sparrow
North America's largest sparrow, with a black hood and bib framing a pink bill, breeding only in Canada and wintering on the Great Plains.
songbird
Henslow's Sparrow
A secretive prairie sparrow with a large flat head, olive face, and one of the most unimpressive songs of any North American bird.
songbird
Major Mitchell's Cockatoo
A softly pink and white cockatoo of Australia's dry interior, best known for its brilliant red, yellow, and white banded crest.
parrot
Lappet-faced Vulture
Africa's largest vulture, instantly recognizable by its massive bill and bare pink-red head draped with fleshy folds of skin.
raptor
Hawfinch
Europe's largest finch, a stocky, shy woodland bird with an enormous, powerful bill built for cracking cherry stones.
songbird
Great Blue Heron
North America's largest and most widespread heron, a tall blue-grey wading bird often seen standing motionless at the water's edge waiting to strike prey.
wading-bird
Laughing Falcon
A cream-headed, masked falcon specialized in hunting snakes, famous for its loud, laughing duets that ring across Neotropical woodlands.
raptor
Green Woodpecker
A large, ground-feeding woodpecker with vivid green plumage, a red crown, and a loud laughing call known as the "yaffle".
woodpecker
Lammergeier
A huge Old World vulture famous for dropping bones onto rocks to crack them open and feeding almost exclusively on bone marrow.
raptor
Inca Dove
A tiny, pale dove of the desert Southwest whose feathers appear scalloped like fish scales and whose flight flashes rusty wing patches.
other
Little Tern
A tiny, fast-flying tern with a black-tipped yellow bill and white forehead patch that hovers before plunge-diving for small fish along sandy coastlines.
seabird
Little Owl
A small, flat-headed owl of open farmland that is often active by day, bobbing and staring with piercing yellow eyes.
owl
Montezuma Oropendola
A large Central American icterid with a chestnut body, black head, orange-tipped bill, and bare blue-and-pink facial skin, known for colonial hanging nests and loud gurgling calls.
songbird
Humboldt Penguin
A banded penguin of the cold Humboldt Current off Peru and Chile, recognized by a single black chest band and a patch of bare pink skin at the base of its bill.
seabird
Great Shearwater
A trans-equatorial migrant shearwater with a sharply defined dark cap and white collar, breeding on remote South Atlantic islands and wintering across the North Atlantic.
seabird
Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker
The smallest woodpecker in Japan, a sparrow-sized bird finely barred in brown and white, with males showing a tiny red spot on the head.
woodpecker
Greater Sage-Grouse
The largest North American grouse, famous for males' spectacular strutting display with inflated air sacs on communal leks scattered across the sagebrush sea.
gamebird
Little Gull
The smallest gull in the world, a dainty, tern-like bird best known for its distinctive blackish underwings, unique among gulls.
seabird
Homing Pigeon
A domestic pigeon breed selectively developed for a strong, fast flight and an exceptional ability to navigate back to its home loft over long distances.
other
Harris's Hawk
A dark chocolate-brown desert hawk famous for hunting cooperatively in family groups, unlike almost any other raptor.
raptor
Hammond's Flycatcher
A small, grayish Empidonax flycatcher of mature western conifer forests, often foraging high in the canopy and best identified by voice.
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
Nankeen Kestrel
Australia's smallest falcon, a rufous-backed kestrel famous for hovering motionless in the air while scanning for prey.
raptor
Lucy's Warbler
One of North America's smallest warblers, a pale gray desert species with a chestnut rump and crown patch, unusual among warblers for nesting in tree cavities.
songbird
Long-tailed Duck
An Arctic sea duck known for the male's long slender tail streamers and unusually complex seasonal plumages.
waterfowl
Long-tailed Sylph
An Andean hummingbird whose males trail a spectacularly long, deeply forked, iridescent blue-green tail nearly three times the length of the body.
hummingbird
Long-billed Dowitcher
A close relative of the Short-billed Dowitcher, best told apart by its sharp single-note call and preference for freshwater wetlands over coastal habitats.
shorebird
Lincoln's Sparrow
A shy, finely streaked sparrow with a buffy breast band, often described as the best-dressed sparrow, that skulks low in dense cover.
songbird
Le Conte's Thrasher
The palest of the thrashers, a shy, sandy-colored bird of the open Mojave and Sonoran Desert flats that prefers running to flying.
songbird
Little Wattlebird
A streaky brown-grey honeyeater with a rufous wing patch, one of Australia's larger honeyeaters, despite lacking the fleshy face wattles of its close relatives.
songbird
Meyer's Parrot
A widespread African savanna parrot with mostly brown-grey plumage set off by turquoise underparts and yellow shoulder patches.
parrot
Greater Prairie-Chicken
A heavily barred prairie grouse famous for the male's booming courtship display, featuring orange air sacs and erect pinnae feathers on communal leks.
gamebird
Long-billed Corella
A white cockatoo of southeastern Australia with a distinctively long, slender bill and pink-red markings across the face and throat.
parrot
Green Jay
A dazzlingly colored jay of south Texas brushlands with a green back, sky-blue head markings, and lemon-yellow outer tail feathers.
songbird
Martial Eagle
Africa's largest and most powerful eagle, the Martial Eagle is a formidable savanna predator capable of taking prey as large as small antelope.
raptor
Lucifer Hummingbird
A rare desert hummingbird with a distinctly curved bill and, in males, an elongated glittering purple gorget.
hummingbird