Bird Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ birds — with size, habitat, diet, voice, behavior, and the field marks that tell them apart.
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
Whimbrel
A medium-sized curlew with a boldly striped crown and long decurved bill, found on nearly every coastline in the world outside the breeding season.
shorebird
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
White-tailed Hawk
A striking pale-headed hawk of coastal Texas prairies, sometimes seen gathering at grass fires to catch fleeing prey.
raptor
Swainson's Warbler
A plain, secretive brown warbler of dense southeastern thickets, more often heard than seen thanks to its loud, ringing song.
songbird
Water Pipit
A gray-toned mountain pipit that breeds above the treeline and descends to lowland wetlands in winter.
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
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
Whitehead
A small, sociable North Island endemic songbird with a plain grey-brown body and a distinctive whitish head, usually encountered in noisy, active foraging flocks.
songbird
Winter Wren
A tiny, dark, almost tailless woodland wren of eastern North America known for its remarkably long, bubbling song.
songbird
Tundra Swan
A medium-sized white swan of the Arctic tundra, often showing a small yellow spot near the bill, that winters in large flocks on coastal wetlands.
waterfowl
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
Whooping Crane
North America's tallest bird, a rare, snow-white crane with black wingtips that has become a flagship symbol of wildlife conservation after nearly going extinct.
wading-bird
Woodland Kingfisher
A vividly colored, non-aquatic African kingfisher famous for its loud trilling call from open perches.
other
Varied Tit
A striking, boldly patterned tit with chestnut underparts, a black-and-white face, and a habit of caching seeds for later.
songbird
Tufted Titmouse
A gray, crested songbird with a black forehead patch, white underparts, and rusty flanks, common at eastern U.S. feeders.
songbird
Wedge-tailed Eagle
Australia's largest bird of prey, the Wedge-tailed Eagle is a huge, dark brown raptor named for its distinctive long, diamond-shaped tail, often seen soaring effortlessly over open country.
raptor
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
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
Vermilion Flycatcher
A tiny, brilliant scarlet-red flycatcher of southwestern deserts and riverbanks, among the most vividly colored songbirds in North America.
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-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
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
Superb Starling
A common, strikingly colorful East African starling with a metallic blue-green back, chestnut belly, and a bold white breast band, familiar around safari camps and towns.
songbird
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
Tufted Puffin
A large North Pacific puffin with a massive orange bill and long golden head plumes trailing backward in breeding plumage.
seabird
Woodlark
A short-tailed lark of heathland and woodland edge known for its rich, melancholy, fluting song.
songbird
White-necked Jacobin
A striking Neotropical hummingbird with males showing a deep blue-violet hood, snow-white underparts, and a bold white band across the tail.
hummingbird
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
Yellow Warbler
A brilliant, all-yellow warbler of streamside willows and wet thickets, with breeding males showing fine rusty streaks on the breast.
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
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
Whistling Kite
A pale, long-winged raptor named for its distinctive whistling call, often seen soaring lazily over open country.
raptor
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
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
Trumpeter Hornbill
A large black-and-white forest hornbill of eastern and southern Africa, named for its loud, wailing, trumpet-like calls.
other
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
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
Rifleman
New Zealand's smallest bird, a tiny, tail-less-looking green-and-brown forest bird belonging to an ancient lineage found nowhere else on Earth.
songbird
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
Whooper Swan
A large Eurasian swan with a yellow-and-black bill and a loud, bugling voice, breeding across the far north and famed for long migratory flights.
waterfowl
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
Wild Turkey
North America's largest gamebird, a bronze-iridescent forest turkey famous for the male's fanned tail and booming spring gobble.
gamebird
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-crowned Amazon
A mostly green Amazon parrot of northern South America with a small patch of yellow feathers on the crown.
parrot
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
Wilson's Bird-of-paradise
A small, dazzlingly colored bird-of-paradise found only on two Indonesian islands, with a bare turquoise crown and curled violet tail wires.
songbird
Vulturine Guineafowl
A strikingly patterned East African gamebird with a bare vulture-like blue head and cascading cobalt-blue breast plumes.
gamebird