Bird Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ birds — with size, habitat, diet, voice, behavior, and the field marks that tell them apart.
Southern Red Bishop
A small African wetland bird whose breeding male turns a brilliant scarlet and black, nesting in dense reedbed colonies.
songbird
Saddle-billed Stork
A tall, dramatically colored African stork with a huge black, red, and yellow bill and a yellow frontal shield resembling a saddle.
wading-bird
Black-billed Cuckoo
A slim, elusive, all-dark-billed cuckoo of eastern thickets, distinguished from its yellow-billed relative by a red eye-ring and lack of rufous in the wing.
other
Boat-billed Heron
A bizarre, wide-eyed nocturnal heron of Latin American swamps, instantly recognizable by its enormous broad, boat-shaped bill.
wading-bird
Short-billed Dowitcher
A medium-large sandpiper with a long, straight bill and a distinctive rapid up-and-down probing action likened to a sewing machine, favoring coastal habitats.
shorebird
Long-billed Curlew
North America's largest shorebird, unmistakable for its extremely long, dramatically downcurved bill and warm cinnamon-buff plumage.
shorebird
Gull-billed Tern
A stocky, gull-billed tern with a stout black bill, pale plumage, and an unusual habit of hawking insects over dry land far from water.
seabird
Black-billed Magpie
A striking black-and-white corvid with an extremely long tail and iridescent wings, common across open western rangeland.
songbird
Broad-billed Motmot
A smaller forest motmot with a rufous chest and face, a green back and crown, and a broad, wide-based bill, often perching quietly low in the understorey.
other
Curve-billed Thrasher
A common, noisy desert thrasher with a long downcurved bill and orange-red eyes, often seen atop cactus in the Southwest.
songbird
Southern Carmine Bee-eater
A spectacular pink-and-turquoise bee-eater of southern Africa that forms enormous cliffside breeding colonies along major rivers.
other
Keel-billed Toucan
A spectacular Central American toucan with glossy black plumage, a lemon-yellow breast, and an enormous, boldly rainbow-colored bill.
other
Red-billed Leiothrix
A vividly colored, red-billed songbird nicknamed the Pekin Robin, olive-green above with orange-yellow throat and colorful wing patches.
songbird
Ring-billed Gull
A medium-sized, highly adaptable gull common far from the coast, easily told from larger gulls by its yellow legs and the black ring encircling its bill.
seabird
Red-billed Quelea
A small, sparrow-like African weaver famous for forming the largest flocks of any wild bird species, sometimes numbering in the millions.
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
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
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
Spot-billed Pelican
A greyish Asian pelican named for the dark spots that appear on its bill during the breeding season, with strongholds in protected wetlands of India, Sri Lanka, and Cambodia.
seabird
Pied-billed Grebe
A chunky, secretive brown grebe of the Americas, named for its thick, pale bill marked with a black ring in the breeding season.
waterfowl
Red-billed Oxpecker
A specialized African bird that clings to buffalo, giraffe, and other large mammals, picking off ticks with its slender red bill.
songbird
Red-billed Chough
A glossy black corvid of coastal cliffs and mountains, easily recognized by its curved red bill, red legs and buoyant, acrobatic flight.
songbird
Long-billed Thrasher
A darker, longer-billed cousin of the Brown Thrasher found in dense brush of south Texas and northeastern Mexico.
songbird
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