Bird Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ birds — with size, habitat, diet, voice, behavior, and the field marks that tell them apart.
Black-bellied Whistling-Duck
A tall, long-legged, gregarious duck with a bright pink-red bill, gray face, chestnut body, and a bold black belly, often seen perching in trees.
waterfowl
Ladder-backed Woodpecker
A small desert woodpecker with a finely barred black-and-white 'ladder' back pattern, well adapted to arid scrub, mesquite, and cactus habitat.
woodpecker
Great Kiskadee
A big, boldly patterned flycatcher named for its loud 'kis-ka-dee' call, often seen near water snatching insects, small fish, and fruit.
songbird
Burrowing Owl
A small, long-legged owl that nests underground in abandoned burrows and is often seen standing bolt upright by day.
owl
Gunnison Sage-Grouse
A small, range-restricted sage-grouse endemic to sagebrush country around the Gunnison Basin, formally recognized as separate from the Greater Sage-Grouse in 2000.
gamebird
Scott's Oriole
A yucca-loving oriole of the arid Southwest, with males showing lemon-yellow underparts contrasting against a solid black head and back.
songbird
Rock Ptarmigan
A circumpolar tundra grouse of barren rocky ground, distinguished from the similar Willow Ptarmigan by the male's black eye-stripe in winter plumage.
gamebird
Red-faced Warbler
An unmistakable warbler with a brilliant red face and throat set against a gray body, found in high mountain forests of the Southwest.
songbird
White-eyed Vireo
A skulking thicket-dweller with a pale eye, yellow spectacles, and a sharp, variable song, more often heard than seen.
songbird
Snowy Owl
A large, powerful white owl of the Arctic tundra, occasionally seen far south in winter hunting open fields by day.
owl
Island Scrub-Jay
A large, deep-blue scrub-jay found only on Santa Cruz Island off the California coast, the most range-restricted bird in the continental United States.
songbird
Yellow-headed Blackbird
A striking marsh blackbird with a brilliant yellow head and breast on males, forming dense breeding colonies over open water.
songbird
Egyptian Goose
A large, long-legged, goose-like duck native to Africa with a pale buffy-brown body, a distinctive dark eye patch, and a chestnut chest spot.
waterfowl
Broad-winged Hawk
A compact eastern forest hawk famous for gathering by the thousands into swirling migratory "kettles" each fall.
raptor
Acadian Flycatcher
A greenish, large-billed Empidonax flycatcher of shaded eastern forest ravines, identified by its explosive 'peet-sah' song.
songbird
Blue Grosbeak
A stocky, deep-blue finch-like bird with rich chestnut wingbars and a heavy silver bill, favoring brushy fields across the southern and central United States.
songbird
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
Common Raven
A massive, highly intelligent black corvid with a wedge-shaped tail and deep croaking voice, found across a vast range of wild habitats.
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
Audubon's Oriole
A secretive yellow-and-black oriole with a full black hood, found in the United States only in the dense brushlands of the lower Rio Grande Valley.
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
Swallow-tailed Kite
An unmistakable black-and-white raptor with a deeply forked tail that glides effortlessly over southern swamps.
raptor
Warbling Vireo
A plain, nondescript gray-olive vireo best known for its rich, husky, warbled song delivered from high in deciduous trees.
songbird
Verdin
A tiny, active desert songbird with a bright yellow head and a chestnut shoulder patch, famous for its bulky twig nests.
songbird
Spruce Grouse
A dark, tame grouse of northern conifer forests, nicknamed the 'fool hen' for its remarkable tolerance of close approach by people.
gamebird
Western Screech-Owl
A small, tufted owl of the West, closely resembling its eastern counterpart but told apart by range and a distinctive accelerating call.
owl
Dusky Flycatcher
A gray-olive Empidonax flycatcher of open western mountain shrublands and forest edges, closely resembling several relatives and best told apart by voice.
songbird
Lazuli Bunting
The western counterpart of the Indigo Bunting, with males showing a sky-blue head and back, a warm orange breast band, and a white belly.
songbird
Common Eider
A large, heavy-bodied sea duck of northern coasts, breeding males are strikingly patterned in black and white with a pale green nape, while females are finely barred brown.
waterfowl
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
Ruffed Grouse
A mottled brown forest grouse famous for the male's drumming display, a rapid low thumping made by beating the wings rather than any vocal sound.
gamebird
Elf Owl
The world's smallest owl, a sparrow-sized desert dweller that nests in old woodpecker holes in saguaro cacti.
owl
Vermilion Flycatcher
A tiny, brilliant scarlet-red flycatcher of southwestern deserts and riverbanks, among the most vividly colored songbirds in North America.
songbird
Gila Woodpecker
A desert-adapted woodpecker that carves its nest cavities into towering saguaro cacti.
woodpecker
Vaux's Swift
The western counterpart of the Chimney Swift, a tiny, cigar-shaped aerial bird that nests in hollow old-growth trees and large chimneys.
other
American Pipit
A slender, streaky brown songbird of open ground that constantly bobs its tail as it walks.
songbird
Yellow-throated Vireo
A canopy-dwelling eastern vireo with a bright yellow throat and spectacles, olive back, and a slow, burry song.
songbird
Rusty Blackbird
A boreal-breeding blackbird that turns rusty-edged in fall plumage, now one of the most steeply declining songbirds in North America.
songbird
Western Kingbird
A pale gray-headed, lemon-bellied flycatcher commonly seen perched on wires and fence posts across open western landscapes.
songbird
Spotted Owl
A dark-eyed, chocolate-brown forest owl closely tied to old-growth woodland and famous as a flagship species for old-growth conservation debates.
owl
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
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
Ring-necked Pheasant
A large, long-tailed introduced pheasant whose iridescent copper-and-green males are a familiar sight in farm country.
gamebird
Flammulated Owl
A tiny, dark-eyed, migratory owl of western pine forests whose deep, ventriloquial hoot belies its diminutive size.
owl
Blue-headed Vireo
A crisply marked eastern vireo with a blue-gray head, bold white spectacles, and a slow, sweet, warbling song.
songbird
Black Phoebe
A sooty-black flycatcher with a crisp white belly that is almost always found perched near water, pumping its tail.
songbird
Western Wood-Pewee
A drab, grayish-olive flycatcher of western woodlands best identified by its harsh, nasal 'peeer' call given from an exposed perch.
songbird
Veery
A uniformly tawny thrush of moist woodlands, named for its breezy, downward-spiraling song of repeated "veer" notes.
songbird