Bird Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ birds — with size, habitat, diet, voice, behavior, and the field marks that tell them apart.
Yellow-crowned Night-Heron
A stocky grey heron with a bold black-and-white striped face and a pale yellowish crown, specialized for hunting crabs and crayfish.
wading-bird
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
Spotted Nutcracker
A stocky, chocolate-brown corvid densely spotted with white, specialized for harvesting and caching conifer seeds in mountain forests.
songbird
North Island Kokako
A slate-blue-grey New Zealand forest bird with striking blue wattles, a weak flier that instead leaps and glides gracefully through the canopy, once nearly lost but now recovering thanks to intensive conservation.
songbird
New Zealand Fantail
A tiny, energetic New Zealand bird best known for its wide, fan-shaped tail and its habit of following walkers through the bush to snap up disturbed insects.
songbird
Clark's Nutcracker
A pale gray high-mountain corvid famous for caching tens of thousands of pine seeds each year and for its remarkable spatial memory.
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
Red-necked Phalarope
A small, needle-billed shorebird that spins in tight circles on the water to stir up food, with brighter-plumaged females and a largely oceanic lifestyle outside the breeding season.
shorebird
Northern Saw-whet Owl
One of North America's smallest owls, a secretive forest dweller named for a call once likened to a saw blade being sharpened.
owl
New Zealand Bellbird
A plain olive-green New Zealand honeyeater renowned for its clear, melodious, bell-like song, often one of the first sounds heard at dawn in native forest.
songbird
Nuttall's Woodpecker
A small black-and-white woodpecker nearly endemic to California, closely tied to oak woodland and streamside groves.
woodpecker
Northern Waterthrush
A boreal-breeding, thrush-like warbler of still-water wetlands and swamps, closely resembling Louisiana Waterthrush but favoring quieter water and showing a finely streaked throat.
songbird
Narcissus Flycatcher
A small, brilliantly colored flycatcher; the male combines black upperparts with a vivid yellow-orange throat, breast, and rump.
songbird
Northern Rough-winged Swallow
A plain brown swallow that nests in burrows in dirt banks, distinguished from other swallows by its uniform pale throat and lack of a breast band.
songbird
North Island Brown Kiwi
The most numerous kiwi species and an enduring national symbol of New Zealand, a flightless, nocturnal, shaggy brown bird that hunts invertebrates by smell.
other
White-breasted Nuthatch
A compact, short-tailed bird with blue-gray upperparts and white underparts, famous for creeping headfirst down tree trunks.
songbird
Black-crowned Night-Heron
A stocky, thick-necked heron active mainly at dusk and night, with a glossy black crown and back, pale grey wings, and striking red eyes.
wading-bird
Snow Petrel
An entirely pure-white seabird of the Antarctic pack ice, one of only a handful of bird species that breed farther south than almost any other on Earth.
seabird
Stitchbird
A small, striking New Zealand honeyeater-like bird, the male boldly patterned in black, yellow, and white, now surviving only on predator-free islands and in reintroduced mainland sanctuaries.
songbird
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
Eared Grebe
The most numerous grebe in the world, known for its fan-shaped golden ear plumes and mass staging at hypersaline lakes.
waterfowl
Baltimore Oriole
A brilliant flame-orange and black songbird of eastern North America, named for the heraldic colors of Lord Baltimore, known for its hanging pouch nest.
songbird
Weka
A large, bold, flightless New Zealand rail with rich brown plumage, famous for its cheeky, opportunistic curiosity and its habit of investigating and sometimes stealing unattended items from campsites.
other
Painted Bunting
Often called the most colorful bird in North America, the male Painted Bunting displays an almost impossibly vivid patchwork of blue, green, and red.
songbird