Bird Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ birds — with size, habitat, diet, voice, behavior, and the field marks that tell them apart.
Tui
An iridescent, dark New Zealand honeyeater with a distinctive white throat tuft, famed for its extraordinarily varied, bell-like and mechanical song.
songbird
White-eared Bulbul
A dusky-grey bulbul with a black head, a bold white ear patch, and a bright yellow vent, common in gardens across the Middle East and South Asia.
songbird
Townsend's Warbler
A boldly patterned warbler of Pacific Northwest conifer forests, with a black-and-yellow face pattern, dark cheek patch, and streaked yellow breast.
songbird
Sword-billed Hummingbird
A high-Andean hummingbird with an extraordinarily long, straight bill, longer than its own body, specialized for feeding on long-tubed flowers.
hummingbird
Wilson's Snipe
A stocky, cryptically patterned North American marsh bird with an extremely long bill, best known for the eerie winnowing sound males make during display flights.
shorebird
Thick-billed Murre
A stocky Arctic auk similar to the Common Murre but with a shorter, thicker bill marked by a pale gape stripe.
seabird
White-throated Kingfisher
A vividly colored kingfisher with turquoise-blue upperparts, a chocolate-brown head, and a bright white throat, often seen far from water.
other
Woodhouse's Scrub-Jay
A pale, crestless blue jay of the interior West's pinyon-juniper woodlands, closely tied to pine nut crops.
songbird
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
White-throated Sparrow
A large, boldly patterned sparrow with a crisp white throat patch and yellow lores, famous for its whistled "Oh-sweet-Canada" song.
songbird
Tricolored Heron
A slender, dark-bodied heron of American coastal marshes with a bright white belly and neck stripe that sets it apart from all other herons.
wading-bird
Western Rosella
The smallest of the rosellas, found only in southwestern Australia, with a red head and underparts, green back, and bright yellow cheek patches.
parrot
Virginia's Warbler
A plain gray warbler of dry southwestern mountain scrub, with a bold white eyering, a small yellow breast patch, and yellow undertail coverts.
songbird
Wattled Crane
The tallest crane in Africa, easily told by the pair of long, fleshy white wattles hanging beneath its chin.
wading-bird
White-tailed Eagle
A massive Eurasian raptor with a barn-door wingspan, pale head, and unmistakable wedge-shaped white tail.
raptor
White-tailed Kite
A pale, elegant hawk with black shoulder patches that hunts by hovering gracefully over open fields on beating wings.
raptor
White-browed Robin-Chat
A large, richly colored African robin-chat prized for its loud, beautiful dawn song and bold white eyebrow stripe.
songbird
Western Wood-Pewee
A drab, grayish-olive flycatcher of western woodlands best identified by its harsh, nasal 'peeer' call given from an exposed perch.
songbird
White-bellied Sunbird
A small southern African sunbird whose iridescent green head and clean white belly make it one of the easier local sunbirds to identify.
songbird
Whinchat
A migratory chat of rough grassland and moorland edges, identified by its bold white eyebrow stripe and orange-buff breast.
songbird
Turkey Vulture
A large, dark scavenger with a naked red head and a distinctive tilting, V-shaped soaring flight, famed for its exceptional sense of smell.
raptor
Yellow-billed Magpie
A California endemic magpie nearly identical to the Black-billed Magpie but distinguished by its bright yellow bill.
songbird
Veery
A uniformly tawny thrush of moist woodlands, named for its breezy, downward-spiraling song of repeated "veer" notes.
songbird
White-eyed Vireo
A skulking thicket-dweller with a pale eye, yellow spectacles, and a sharp, variable song, more often heard than seen.
songbird
Willie Wagtail
A small, confident black-and-white bird constantly wagging its tail from side to side, well known for its cheerful song and bold habit of mobbing much larger birds.
songbird
Willow Ptarmigan
A tundra grouse and Alaska's state bird, turning pure white in winter and rich mottled rufous-brown in summer, with males retaining a chestnut head and neck longest into spring.
gamebird
Verdin
A tiny, active desert songbird with a bright yellow head and a chestnut shoulder patch, famous for its bulky twig nests.
songbird
Western Gull
A large, dark-backed gull restricted almost entirely to the Pacific coast of North America, a common sight on rocky shorelines and piers from Washington to Baja California.
seabird
Yellow-billed Loon
The largest and rarest loon species, identified by its massive, pale, slightly upturned yellowish bill.
seabird
White Wagtail
A slim, long-tailed black, white, and grey bird, constantly wagging its tail as it darts about open ground catching insects, equally at home in farmland or city centres.
songbird
Worm-eating Warbler
A plain buffy warbler with bold black head stripes, best known for its habit of probing curled dead leaves for caterpillars rather than eating earthworms.
songbird
Thick-billed Longspur
A stocky, heavy-billed shortgrass prairie longspur, the current official name (since 2020) for the species formerly called McCown's Longspur.
songbird
Tufted Duck
A compact Eurasian diving duck with a drooping head tuft, the drake strikingly patterned in black and white and occasionally found among scaup flocks in North America.
waterfowl
Tawny Eagle
A variably colored savanna eagle of Africa known for its highly opportunistic feeding, from scavenging carcasses to stealing prey from other birds.
raptor
Swainson's Thrush
A buffy-faced forest thrush known for its upward-spiraling flute-like song and heavy nocturnal migration through much of North America.
songbird
Vinous-throated Parrotbill
A tiny, cinnamon-brown, long-tailed songbird with a stubby parrot-like bill, usually seen moving through scrub in noisy, gregarious flocks.
songbird
Vesper Sparrow
A streaky grassland sparrow with a white eye-ring, chestnut shoulder patch, and white outer tail feathers, named for its evening song.
songbird
Western Sandpiper
A tiny, abundant sandpiper with a longer, slightly drooped bill than its similar peep relatives, forming vast flocks at key coastal stopover sites.
shorebird
Variegated Fairywren
A small, colorful fairywren whose breeding males combine blue, black, and a bright chestnut shoulder patch, found widely across mainland Australia's scrub and woodland.
songbird
White-crowned Sparrow
A crisply marked sparrow with bold black-and-white crown stripes, a plain gray breast, and a pink or yellowish bill.
songbird
Ural Owl
A large pale grey owl of Eurasian forests, closely related to the Barred Owl, known for its fierce nest defense.
owl
Superb Parrot
A slender, bright green Australian parrot with a yellow face and red throat band in males, tied closely to river red gum woodlands of the Riverina.
parrot
Zone-tailed Hawk
A blackish hawk that mimics the flight and silhouette of Turkey Vultures, letting it sneak up on unsuspecting prey.
raptor
Western Marsh Harrier
The largest of the harriers, a broad-winged raptor that quarters low over reedbeds with wings held in a shallow V.
raptor
White-winged Scoter
The largest scoter, black-bodied with a white speculum patch in the wing and a comma-shaped white eye mark.
waterfowl
Woodchat Shrike
A striking Mediterranean shrike with a chestnut crown, black mask, and bold white wing patches.
songbird
Western Meadowlark
The state bird of six U.S. states, prized for its rich, bubbling, flute-like song delivered across open western grasslands.
songbird
Warbling Vireo
A plain, nondescript gray-olive vireo best known for its rich, husky, warbled song delivered from high in deciduous trees.
songbird