Bird Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ birds — with size, habitat, diet, voice, behavior, and the field marks that tell them apart.
Common Yellowthroat
A skulking marsh warbler with a bright yellow throat, best known for the male's bold black facial mask and witchety-witchety-witchety song.
songbird
California Quail
California's state bird, a plump, sociable quail with a distinctive forward-drooping black head plume.
gamebird
Brown-headed Nuthatch
A tiny brown-capped nuthatch of southeastern pine forests, notable as one of the few birds known to use tools.
songbird
Common Bulbul
A plain brown, noisy, and highly social African songbird known for its cheerful bubbling call and bright yellow undertail.
songbird
Common Nighthawk
A cryptically patterned, long-winged aerial insect-hunter often seen at dusk with erratic, bat-like flight and a nasal "peent" call.
other
Broad-winged Hawk
A compact eastern forest hawk famous for gathering by the thousands into swirling migratory "kettles" each fall.
raptor
Black-footed Albatross
A dark, sooty-brown albatross of the North Pacific that often nests alongside the Laysan Albatross and follows fishing vessels far from land.
seabird
Canada Warbler
A slate-gray and yellow warbler notable for the bold necklace of black streaking across its breast and the yellow "spectacles" framing its eyes.
songbird
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
Channel-billed Toucan
A large South American toucan with black plumage, a yellow-orange throat and breast, and a robust, mostly black bill with a colorful base.
other
Australian Owlet-nightjar
A small, big-eyed nocturnal bird with soft grey-brown mottled plumage and whisker-like facial bristles, often seen peering from a tree hollow entrance by day.
other
Common Pheasant
A large, long-tailed gamebird; males are strikingly iridescent with a bare red face, while females are cryptically mottled brown.
gamebird
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
Blackpoll Warbler
A boreal-breeding warbler famous for its extraordinary nonstop transoceanic migration flight from the northeastern U.S. to South America.
songbird
Coal Tit
A small, active tit with a glossy black head, white cheeks, and a distinctive white patch on the nape, favoring conifer woodlands.
songbird
Burrowing Owl
A small, long-legged owl that nests underground in abandoned burrows and is often seen standing bolt upright by day.
owl
Blue Jay
A bold, crested songbird in vivid blue, white, and black, known for its loud calls and habit of caching acorns.
songbird
Bean Goose
A large, dark-headed grey goose of northern Eurasia named for its habit of feeding in fields of beans and grain during migration.
waterfowl
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
Cape Gannet
A large white seabird with black flight feathers and a golden crown that breeds in dense colonies on islands off southern Africa.
seabird
Common Sandpiper
The Old World counterpart of the Spotted Sandpiper, a small, constantly bobbing shorebird found along rivers, streams, and lakes across Europe, Asia, and Africa.
shorebird
Common Kestrel
A familiar, russet-backed falcon best known for its ability to hover motionless in mid-air while scanning the ground for prey.
raptor
Cockatoo
A family of large, crested parrots native to Australia, New Guinea, and nearby islands, distinguished by their erectile crests and mostly white, black, pink, or grey plumage.
parrot
Chimney Swift
A dark, cigar-shaped aerial bird that nests almost exclusively in chimneys across eastern North America, spending nearly its entire life on the wing.
other
Bank Myna
A pale bluish-grey myna with an orange bare-skin eye patch, common around towns and riverbanks of the Indian subcontinent, where it nests in burrows in earthen banks.
songbird
Black-billed Magpie
A striking black-and-white corvid with an extremely long tail and iridescent wings, common across open western rangeland.
songbird
Bearded Reedling
A long-tailed, tawny reedbed specialist; males sport a striking grey head with a black "moustache" despite the misleading name Bearded Tit.
songbird
Black-chinned Hummingbird
A widespread western hummingbird whose males show a velvety black throat edged with a thin band of iridescent purple.
hummingbird
Common Goldeneye
A hardy cavity-nesting diving duck named for its brilliant golden-yellow eye, the drake bearing a round white cheek spot on a glossy dark green head.
waterfowl
California Condor
North America's largest flying land bird, an enormous black scavenger with a naked orange-pink head, brought back from the brink of extinction through intensive captive breeding.
raptor
Chestnut-sided Warbler
A bright yellow-capped warbler with bold chestnut stripes down the flanks in breeding plumage, a bird that has benefited from second-growth habitat.
songbird
Curlew Sandpiper
A graceful sandpiper with a long, evenly curved bill and, in breeding plumage, a rich brick-red body unlike any other small sandpiper.
shorebird
Black-headed Gull
An abundant Eurasian gull, despite its name actually sporting a chocolate-brown (not black) hood, and a rare but regular visitor to eastern North America.
seabird
Brown Booby
A widespread tropical seabird with dark chocolate-brown upperparts sharply set off from a clean white belly and underwings.
seabird
Common Redshank
A medium-sized, noisy sandpiper of European wetlands, nicknamed "the warden of the marshes" for its loud alarm calls, and easily told by its bright orange-red legs.
shorebird
Blue Dacnis
A small, brilliant turquoise-blue tanager relative with a black throat and back, whose olive-green female shows a contrasting blue head.
songbird
Corn Bunting
A large, chunky, streaky-brown bunting of open farmland, best known for its jangling song likened to a bunch of keys.
songbird
Cedar Waxwing
A sleek, crested, silky-brown songbird with a yellow-tipped tail and waxy red wingtips that travels in nomadic flocks following fruit crops.
songbird
Azure-winged Magpie
A slender, sociable corvid with a black cap, soft grey-buff body, and striking pale azure-blue wings and tail.
songbird
Brant
A small, dark sea goose with a stubby black bill and neck, closely tied to coastal eelgrass beds.
waterfowl
Bell's Sparrow
A dark-headed California scrub sparrow, the close relative and former conspecific of the Sagebrush Sparrow.
songbird
Common Snipe
The Eurasian counterpart to Wilson's Snipe, a cryptically striped marsh bird with a very long bill, famed for the winnowing sound of its aerial display.
shorebird
Cassin's Sparrow
A plain grassland sparrow of the southern Plains famous for its fluttering nocturnal 'sky dance' flight song.
songbird
Common Pochard
A diving duck with a rounded chestnut head, red eye, and pale grey body in the male, often seen in large rafts on open lakes.
waterfowl
Black Woodpecker
Europe's largest woodpecker, an all-black, crow-sized bird with a striking red crown and powerful excavating bill.
woodpecker
Bufflehead
North America's smallest diving duck, the compact drake striking with a large white patch wrapping around an iridescent black-and-purple head.
waterfowl
Bay-headed Tanager
A vividly colored tanager with a rich chestnut head and glowing turquoise-green body, common in forest canopy from Central to South America.
songbird
Canada Jay
The official current name for the Gray Jay, a fluffy, remarkably tame boreal-forest corvid famous for hoarding food and visiting campsites.
songbird