Bird Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ birds — with size, habitat, diet, voice, behavior, and the field marks that tell them apart.
Yellow-bellied Flycatcher
The brightest and most yellow of the eastern Empidonax flycatchers, breeding in boggy boreal forest and giving a soft, plaintive whistled call.
songbird
Wompoo Fruit Dove
The largest of Australia's fruit doves, a spectacular rainforest bird with a grey head, deep purple-magenta breast, yellow-green back, and yellow-striped belly.
other
White-fronted Bee-eater
A colorful, colonially nesting African bee-eater with a white forehead, crimson throat patch, and green body, best known for its cooperative breeding system.
other
Wonga Pigeon
A large, plump ground-dwelling pigeon with grey upperparts, a white face and underside marked by bold black V-shaped bars, usually seen walking quietly on the forest floor.
other
Yellow-rumped Warbler
An abundant, adaptable warbler nicknamed 'butter-butt' for its bright yellow rump, able to survive winter farther north than most warblers by eating berries.
songbird
Woodlark
A short-tailed lark of heathland and woodland edge known for its rich, melancholy, fluting song.
songbird
Water Pipit
A gray-toned mountain pipit that breeds above the treeline and descends to lowland wetlands in winter.
songbird
Yellowhammer
A vividly yellow-headed bunting of farmland hedgerows, famous for its song often rendered as "a little bit of bread and no cheese."
songbird
Yellow Warbler
A brilliant, all-yellow warbler of streamside willows and wet thickets, with breeding males showing fine rusty streaks on the breast.
songbird
Yellow-billed Kite
A common, adaptable African raptor with a bright yellow bill and forked tail, often seen soaring over towns and open country.
raptor
White-throated Swift
A fast, boldly black-and-white patterned swift of western cliffs and canyons, among the fastest fliers of any North American bird.
other
Willow Flycatcher
A plain, greenish-brown Empidonax flycatcher best identified by its sneezy 'fitz-bew' song, breeding in dense willow thickets across North America.
songbird
Trumpeter Hornbill
A large black-and-white forest hornbill of eastern and southern Africa, named for its loud, wailing, trumpet-like calls.
other
White Ibis
A familiar bright-white wading bird of the American South, with a curved pink bill and legs, often seen probing lawns and marshes for crayfish.
wading-bird
Wilson's Phalarope
The largest of the three phalarope species and the only one to breed in interior wetlands rather than the Arctic, with brighter females that spin gracefully on shallow ponds.
shorebird
Three-wattled Bellbird
A Central American cotinga whose male sports three long, worm-like black wattles dangling from the base of the bill and delivers an explosive, far-carrying call.
songbird
Western Reef-Heron
A coastal heron that comes in two color forms, slate-grey and pure white, both stalking crabs and fish along mangroves and reefs.
wading-bird
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
A quiet, migratory woodpecker known for drilling neat rows of small holes in tree bark to feed on the flowing sap.
woodpecker
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
Varied Thrush
A striking Pacific Northwest thrush resembling a robin dressed in slate-gray and burnt orange, known for its eerie, single-note whistled song.
songbird
Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo
A large, sooty-black cockatoo of southeastern Australia with bold yellow cheek patches and yellow tail panels, often heard calling before it is seen.
parrot
Willow Tit
A small, plain tit nearly identical to the Marsh Tit but with a duller matte-black cap, favoring damp woodland and willow or birch scrub.
songbird
White-faced Heron
The most common and widespread heron across Australia and New Zealand, easily told by its pale grey body and clean white face.
wading-bird
Tawny Frogmouth
A nocturnal bird with mottled grey, brown, and white plumage that mimics broken bark, a wide gaping mouth, and large yellow eyes, often mistaken for an owl.
other
Winter Wren
A tiny, dark, almost tailless woodland wren of eastern North America known for its remarkably long, bubbling song.
songbird
Whistling Kite
A pale, long-winged raptor named for its distinctive whistling call, often seen soaring lazily over open country.
raptor
Swamp Sparrow
A rusty-winged, gray-breasted sparrow closely tied to marshes and wetlands, with a slow, musical trill.
songbird
White-backed Vulture
A gregarious African savanna vulture, once the continent's most numerous vulture, now Critically Endangered due to poisoning.
raptor
Woodland Kingfisher
A vividly colored, non-aquatic African kingfisher famous for its loud trilling call from open perches.
other
Yellow-breasted Chat
A large, oddly proportioned warbler relative with a bright yellow breast and a bizarre, varied song of whistles, cackles, and mimicry.
songbird
Tufted Titmouse
A gray, crested songbird with a black forehead patch, white underparts, and rusty flanks, common at eastern U.S. feeders.
songbird
Whiskered Screech-Owl
A small, gray, ear-tufted owl of southwestern oak canyons, best distinguished from the similar Western Screech-Owl by its distinctive irregular-rhythm song.
owl
Willow Warbler
A delicate, greenish leaf warbler best known for its sweet, descending, cascading song, one of the clearest signs of spring across much of Europe.
songbird
White-breasted Nuthatch
A compact, short-tailed bird with blue-gray upperparts and white underparts, famous for creeping headfirst down tree trunks.
songbird
Yellow-billed Oxpecker
A stocky African bird closely related to the Red-billed Oxpecker, identified by its yellow-based, red-tipped bill and lack of a bright eye-ring.
songbird
Yellow-throated Warbler
A gray-backed warbler with a bright yellow throat and bold black-and-white face pattern, well adapted for creeping along bark and probing pine needle clusters and Spanish moss.
songbird
White-winged Dove
A stocky desert-southwest dove with a bold white wing stripe and a red eye ringed in blue, closely tied historically to the blooming and fruiting of saguaro cactus.
other
Yellow-billed Grosbeak
A stocky finch with an oversized yellow bill tipped in black, a black head (in males), and grey-brown body plumage.
songbird
Vulturine Guineafowl
A strikingly patterned East African gamebird with a bare vulture-like blue head and cascading cobalt-blue breast plumes.
gamebird
Verreaux's Eagle
A large, all-black eagle of African mountains and cliffs that specializes almost exclusively in hunting rock hyraxes.
raptor
Wood Warbler
The brightest and most sharply patterned of the leaf warblers, with a vivid yellow throat and breast, white belly, and a distinctive accelerating trill song delivered while quivering its wings.
songbird
Wood Pigeon
A large, common Eurasian pigeon easily told from its relatives by the bold white patches on its neck and wings.
other
White-throated Toucan
A large Amazonian rainforest bird famous for its massive orange-and-black bill, glossy black body, and bright white throat and chest patch.
other
Waxwing
A crested, silky pinkish-grey bird with a black mask, yellow-tipped tail, and waxy red wingtips, best known for irruptive winter berry-feasting flocks.
songbird
Wood Stork
A large white stork of the Americas with a bald, scaly grey-black head and neck, famous for hunting fish by feel in shallow water.
wading-bird
Western Bluebird
A vivid blue thrush of the West with a blue (not orange) throat, chestnut breast and shoulders, and often a chestnut patch on the back.
songbird
Tufted Puffin
A large North Pacific puffin with a massive orange bill and long golden head plumes trailing backward in breeding plumage.
seabird
White-headed Woodpecker
An unmistakable pine-forest woodpecker with an all-white head set against a glossy black body.
woodpecker