Bird Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ birds — with size, habitat, diet, voice, behavior, and the field marks that tell them apart.
Great Bowerbird
The largest bowerbird species, plain grey-brown overall with a usually concealed lilac-pink nape crest, famed for building and decorating the largest avenue bowers of any bird.
songbird
Great Bustard
One of the heaviest flying birds in the world, a massive steppe and farmland bird famous for the male's elaborate courtship display of inflated white plumes.
other
Great Antshrike
A large, red-eyed antbird with strongly different plumage between the sexes: black-and-white males and rich rufous-brown females, both skulking in dense undergrowth.
songbird
Great Frigatebird
A widespread tropical seabird with long angular wings and a forked tail, males displaying a striking inflatable scarlet throat pouch.
seabird
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
Great Kiskadee
A big, boldly patterned flycatcher named for its loud 'kis-ka-dee' call, often seen near water snatching insects, small fish, and fruit.
songbird
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
Great-tailed Grackle
A large, glossy, long-tailed blackbird with a loud, varied voice that has rapidly expanded across urban and agricultural North America.
songbird
Great Grey Shrike
A predatory grey-and-white songbird nicknamed the "butcher bird" for its habit of impaling prey on thorns to store for later.
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
Great Crested Flycatcher
A large canopy flycatcher of eastern woodlands with a lemon-yellow belly, rufous tail, and a loud, whistled call, famous for weaving shed snakeskin into its nest.
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 Reed Warbler
A large, powerful reed-dwelling warbler with a loud, harsh, croaking song that carries far across the reedbeds it calls home.
songbird
Great Blue Turaco
The largest of all turacos, a heavy-bodied, slate-blue rainforest bird with a tall black crest and a huge yellow-and-red bill.
other
Great Gray Owl
One of the tallest owls in the world, with an enormous facial disk and the extraordinary ability to hear and catch rodents hidden beneath snow.
owl
Great Spotted Woodpecker
A striking black-and-white woodpecker with a bold red vent patch, the most widespread and familiar woodpecker across Europe.
woodpecker
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
Great Horned Owl
A powerful, large-eared owl found across nearly every habitat in the Americas, capable of taking prey larger than itself.
owl
Great White Pelican
A massive white pelican of Old World wetlands with a wingspan among the largest of any bird, tinged pink in breeding season and prone to spectacular coordinated group fishing.
seabird
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
Roseate Spoonbill
A vivid pink wading bird with an unmistakable spoon-shaped bill, often mistaken for a flamingo when glimpsed at a distance in coastal marshes.
wading-bird
Lesser Yellowlegs
A slim, delicate sandpiper with bright yellow legs, essentially a smaller, daintier version of the Greater Yellowlegs with a shorter, straighter bill.
shorebird
Common Greenshank
The Old World counterpart of the Greater Yellowlegs, a tall gray sandpiper with long greenish legs and a distinctive upturned bill.
shorebird
Lesser Rhea
A large flightless bird of the southern South American steppe, smaller and paler than the Greater Rhea, with grayish-brown plumage flecked with white.
other