Bird Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ birds — with size, habitat, diet, voice, behavior, and the field marks that tell them apart.
Common Poorwill
A small, cryptic desert nightjar uniquely known for entering a hibernation-like torpor to survive cold weather.
other
Amethyst Sunbird
A sunbird that looks almost entirely black at rest but flashes brilliant amethyst-purple on its crown and throat when caught in good light.
songbird
Malachite Sunbird
A dazzling metallic-green sunbird of African highlands, with breeding males trailing long tail streamers as they feed on nectar-rich Proteas and aloes.
songbird
Pukeko
A large, deep blue-purple swamphen with a bright red bill and frontal shield, a common and conspicuous sight striding through New Zealand wetlands and roadside paddocks.
wading-bird
Hamerkop
A uniquely shaped brown wading bird with a hammer-shaped head, famed for building enormous, elaborate stick nests.
wading-bird
Lark Bunting
A gregarious prairie songbird whose breeding male turns entirely black with a bold white wing patch, Colorado's state bird.
songbird
Little Wattlebird
A streaky brown-grey honeyeater with a rufous wing patch, one of Australia's larger honeyeaters, despite lacking the fleshy face wattles of its close relatives.
songbird
Laughing Kookaburra
A large, stocky Australian kingfisher famous for its raucous, human-like laughing call.
other
Bee Hummingbird
The world's smallest bird, a Cuban hummingbird barely larger than a large insect, with the breeding male sporting an iridescent rose-pink head and throat.
hummingbird
Common Myna
A brown-bodied, black-headed myna with bright yellow bill, legs, and bare eye patch, one of the world's most successful urban-adapted birds.
songbird
Variable Sunbird
A small, widespread East African sunbird whose male plumage pattern shifts noticeably from one region to the next, giving the species its name.
songbird
Helmeted Hornbill
A rare Southeast Asian rainforest hornbill famed for its unique solid ivory casque, extremely long tail streamers, and eerie cackling call, now critically endangered from poaching.
other
Calliope Hummingbird
The smallest breeding bird in the United States and Canada, best known for the male's streaked magenta throat rays.
hummingbird
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
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-backed Shrike
A small predatory songbird known for impaling prey on thorns, with a chestnut back and a bold black highwayman's mask.
songbird
Scissor-tailed Flycatcher
An elegant pale gray flycatcher with an extraordinarily long, deeply forked tail and salmon-pink flanks, a signature bird of Texas and Oklahoma grasslands.
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
Eurasian Magpie
A boldly pied corvid with a long, iridescent tail, known for its intelligence and adaptability to human landscapes.
songbird
Kakapo
A flightless, nocturnal, moss-green New Zealand parrot and the heaviest parrot in the world, now surviving only on intensively managed predator-free islands.
parrot
African Jacana
The African Jacana is a striking wetland bird famed for its enormous toes that let it walk across floating lily pads, earning it the nickname "lily-trotter."
shorebird
Atlantic Canary
A small, streaky yellow-green finch native to the Canary Islands, Azores, and Madeira, and the wild ancestor of the familiar Domestic Canary.
songbird
House Sparrow
A stocky, chunky-billed sparrow closely tied to human settlements, with males showing a gray crown, chestnut nape, and black bib.
songbird
Chinese Pond-Heron
A small East Asian heron that transforms from a plain streaky brown bird into a maroon-and-slate breeding beauty each spring.
wading-bird