Bird Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ birds — with size, habitat, diet, voice, behavior, and the field marks that tell them apart.
Canvasback
A large diving duck with a distinctive sloping forehead profile, the drake showing a rich chestnut head, black breast, and pale whitish body.
waterfowl
Bronzed Cowbird
A stocky blackbird with a distinctive ruff of neck feathers and striking red eyes that, like other cowbirds, lays its eggs in the nests of other birds.
songbird
Bobolink
A grassland songbird famous for the breeding male's striking black-and-white "backward tuxedo" plumage and one of the longest migrations of any North American songbird.
songbird
Common Nightingale
A plain brown bird famed above all for its powerful, richly varied song, often delivered at night as well as by day from dense scrub cover.
songbird
Common Eider
A large, bulky sea duck of northern coasts, males boldly patterned black-and-white with a pale green nape and famous for their soft down.
waterfowl
Cave Swallow
A cliff-swallow relative with a buffy forehead and throat that nests colonially under bridges and in caves and culverts across the southern US and Caribbean.
songbird
Cape Weaver
The Cape Weaver is a bright yellow South African endemic songbird renowned for the male's intricately woven, hanging nest colonies.
songbird
Bicknell's Thrush
A rare, high-elevation thrush of northeastern mountaintop spruce forests, nearly identical to Gray-cheeked Thrush but with a much smaller, more threatened range.
songbird
Brewer's Blackbird
A glossy, pale-eyed blackbird of open western habitats, common in parking lots, parks, and farmland, with a purple-and-green iridescent sheen.
songbird
Caique
A small, stocky Amazonian parrot with a bold black-or-orange cap, white underparts, and an energetic, acrobatic personality.
parrot
Atlantic Puffin
A charismatic black-and-white seabird with a colorful triangular bill, nicknamed the 'sea parrot,' that nests in burrows on North Atlantic cliffs.
seabird
Carolina Wren
A small, round, reddish-brown wren with a bold white eyebrow stripe and a surprisingly loud, ringing song for its size.
songbird
Australasian Swamphen
A large, vividly deep-blue-and-purple waterbird with a red bill and frontal shield, often seen flicking its white tail as it walks.
wading-bird
Adelie Penguin
A classic tuxedo-patterned penguin of Antarctica, easily told by the bold white ring encircling each eye.
seabird
Collared Trogon
A colorful trogon of Neotropical foothill forest, with a green back, red breast, and a narrow white band separating the two.
other
Brown Shrike
A migratory rufous-brown shrike with a black mask, commonly seen perched on low bushes and wires during the non-breeding season.
songbird
Barred Antshrike
A boldly black-and-white barred antbird of Central and South American scrub, best known for its harsh, accelerating laughing call.
songbird
American Pipit
A slender, streaky brown songbird of open ground that constantly bobs its tail as it walks.
songbird
Black Oystercatcher
An all-black shorebird of rocky Pacific coastlines, with a long orange bill perfectly suited to prying limpets and mussels from rocks.
shorebird
Cuban Amazon
A vividly colored Caribbean amazon parrot with a white forehead and rosy throat patch, found only in Cuba, the Bahamas, and the Cayman Islands.
parrot
Cape Robin-Chat
A familiar southern African garden bird with an orange face and breast, grey belly, and a rich, melodious song.
songbird
Alpine Swift
A large swift of mountain cliffs with a white belly and throat separated by a brown breast band, among the fastest fliers in level flight.
other
Common Poorwill
A small, cryptic desert nightjar uniquely known for entering a hibernation-like torpor to survive cold weather.
other
Blue-footed Booby
An unmistakable brown-and-white booby famous for its bright blue feet, used in an elaborate courtship dance on Pacific coasts and islands.
seabird
Bourke's Parrot
A small, soft pink-and-brown Australian grass parrot known for its gentle nature and dawn-and-dusk feeding habits.
parrot
Collared Sunbird
A tiny, bright green sunbird of African forest edges, named for the narrow violet band the male wears across an otherwise yellow chest.
songbird
Allen's Hummingbird
A coastal California hummingbird nearly identical to the Rufous Hummingbird but confined to a much narrower range.
hummingbird
African Grey Hornbill
A widespread African hornbill with understated grey-brown plumage, a pale eyebrow stripe, and a dark bill topped by a bony casque ridge in males.
other
African Grey Parrot
A medium-sized, ash-grey parrot with a striking bright red tail, a white facial patch, and a reputation as one of the most cognitively advanced birds known.
parrot
Alder Flycatcher
A plain, olive-brown Empidonax flycatcher of northern alder swamps and wet shrublands, virtually identical to the Willow Flycatcher except by voice.
songbird
Black-necked Stilt
A striking black-and-white shorebird with impossibly long, thin pink legs, wading gracefully through shallow water.
shorebird
American White Pelican
One of North America's largest birds, an enormous white waterbird with a huge orange bill and pouch that fishes cooperatively by herding fish into shallow water rather than diving.
seabird
Amazonian Motmot
A striking green forest bird with a blue-and-black crown and a long tail ending in bare-shafted rackets that it swings like a pendulum.
other
Black Skimmer
A unique black-and-white coastal bird with an oversized red-and-black bill whose lower mandible is longer than the upper, used to skim fish from the water's surface in flight.
seabird
American Avocet
An elegant black-and-white shorebird with a slender upturned bill and, in breeding season, a warm cinnamon-orange head and neck.
shorebird
Crested Pigeon
A grey-brown pigeon with a slender upright black crest and iridescent green-and-purple wing patches, whose wings produce a distinctive whistling sound in flight.
other
Anna's Hummingbird
A common, non-migratory West Coast hummingbird whose males flash an iridescent rose-pink crown and throat and perform a spectacular, chirping high-speed dive display.
hummingbird
African Openbill
A dark, glossy African stork whose uniquely gapped bill is specially shaped for extracting freshwater snails from their shells.
wading-bird
American Three-toed Woodpecker
A boreal woodpecker with a barred black-and-white back, three toes per foot, and a taste for beetle-infested spruce.
woodpecker
American Goldfinch
A small finch famous for the male's brilliant lemon-yellow breeding plumage and black cap, wings, and tail.
songbird
American Tree Sparrow
A rusty-capped sparrow with a bicolored bill and a dark central breast spot, a true winter visitor to much of North America despite its name.
songbird
Andean Flamingo
A pale, high-altitude flamingo of the Andes with bright yellow legs and the most black in its wings of any flamingo species.
wading-bird
African Crowned Eagle
One of Africa's most powerful forest raptors, capable of overpowering prey heavier than itself, earning it the nickname "leopard of the air."
raptor
Agami Heron
One of the most vividly colored herons in the world, a shy forest-swamp specialist with an iridescent green back and deep chestnut underparts.
wading-bird
American Purple Gallinule
The traditional American name for the Purple Gallinule, a jewel-toned marsh bird with purple-blue plumage and huge yellow feet.
wading-bird
African Hoopoe
A distinctive cinnamon-colored African bird with a fan-shaped crest, boldly barred black-and-white wings, and a long curved bill.
other
American Golden-Plover
A slim, elegant plover with gold-spangled upperparts that undertakes one of the longest migrations of any shorebird, between Arctic tundra and South American grasslands.
shorebird
Abert's Towhee
A plain grayish-brown desert towhee with a black face mask, restricted to riparian corridors of the Sonoran Desert region.
songbird