Bird Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ birds — with size, habitat, diet, voice, behavior, and the field marks that tell them apart.
Pine Warbler
A softly plumaged, olive-yellow warbler tightly tied to pine forests, notable among warblers for regularly eating seeds and visiting bird feeders.
songbird
Pygmy Nuthatch
A tiny, highly social nuthatch of western pine forests, notable for cooperative breeding with helper birds at the nest.
songbird
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
Brown-headed Nuthatch
A tiny brown-capped nuthatch of southeastern pine forests, notable as one of the few birds known to use tools.
songbird
Pileated Woodpecker
North America's largest common woodpecker, a crow-sized, mostly black bird with a flaming red crest, famous for excavating large rectangular holes in dead trees.
woodpecker
Peregrine Falcon
The fastest animal on Earth, this powerful falcon stoops on other birds at speeds exceeding 300 km/h (200 mph).
raptor
Lapland Longspur
A circumpolar Arctic breeder that winters in large flocks across open fields, with striking black-faced breeding males and rusty-naped winter birds.
songbird
Merlin
A compact, fast-flying falcon that chases down small birds with relentless, low-level pursuit rather than a high stoop.
raptor
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
Brown-headed Cowbird
A brood-parasitic blackbird whose glossy brown head contrasts with the male's black body, famous for laying eggs in other birds' nests.
songbird
Muscovy Duck
A large, heavy-bodied duck with bare red or black facial skin around the eyes and bill, wild birds are glossy black with white wing patches.
waterfowl
Rock Pigeon
The familiar city pigeon, descended from wild cliff-dwelling birds of Eurasia and North Africa, now found in urban centers worldwide in a huge range of colors and patterns.
other
Bay-breasted Warbler
A boreal-forest warbler whose breeding males show rich chestnut on the crown, throat, and flanks, while fall birds turn plain greenish and are easily confused with Blackpoll Warbler.
songbird
Gilded Flicker
A large, desert-dwelling flicker with golden-yellow underwings that nests in the towering saguaro cactus.
woodpecker
Gila Woodpecker
A desert-adapted woodpecker that carves its nest cavities into towering saguaro cacti.
woodpecker
Pyrrhuloxia
A close desert relative of the Northern Cardinal, gray overall with red highlights and a stubby, parrot-like yellow bill, common in arid brushland of the Southwest.
songbird
Black-throated Sparrow
A striking desert sparrow with a bold black throat framed by crisp white eyebrow and whisker stripes.
songbird
Phainopepla
A slim, crested desert songbird; glossy jet-black males and soft gray females that depend heavily on mistletoe berries.
songbird
Costa's Hummingbird
A desert-dwelling hummingbird renowned for the male's dramatic mustache-like violet gorget and piercing, high-pitched dive-bombing displays.
hummingbird
Gambel's Quail
A charismatic, ground-dwelling desert quail of the American Southwest, easily recognized by its comma-shaped black topknot.
gamebird
Greater Roadrunner
A famous, fast-running desert cuckoo known for its distinctive crest, long tail, and ability to hunt venomous prey including rattlesnakes.
other
Purple Martin
North America's largest swallow, a glossy blue-black aerial insectivore whose eastern population now nests almost entirely in birdhouses provided by people.
songbird
Abert's Towhee
A plain grayish-brown desert towhee with a black face mask, restricted to riparian corridors of the Sonoran Desert region.
songbird
White-winged Dove
A stocky desert dove with a bold white wing stripe visible even at rest, a key pollinator and seed disperser of saguaro cactus in the Sonoran Desert.
other