Bird Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ birds — with size, habitat, diet, voice, behavior, and the field marks that tell them apart.
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
Great Gray Owl
One of the tallest owls in the world, with an enormous facial disk and the extraordinary ability to hear and catch rodents hidden beneath snow.
owl
Common Loon
An iconic North American lake bird famed for its striking black-and-white checkered plumage and haunting, wavering calls.
seabird
Black Tern
A small, buoyant marsh tern that turns almost entirely sooty black in breeding plumage and feeds by dipping to the water surface rather than plunge-diving.
seabird
Takahe
A large, flightless, deep blue-and-green New Zealand rail once thought extinct for fifty years until its dramatic rediscovery in remote Fiordland tussock country in 1948.
other
Little Owl
A small, flat-headed owl of open farmland that is often active by day, bobbing and staring with piercing yellow eyes.
owl
Morepork
New Zealand's only surviving native owl, a small, compact brown owl named for its distinctive, far-carrying "more-pork" call heard after dark.
owl
Fiordland Penguin
A rare crested penguin, known as tawaki, that breeds uniquely among rainforest and rocky coastline of remote Fiordland, distinguished by its broad yellow eyebrow-stripe crest.
seabird
Tui
An iridescent, dark New Zealand honeyeater with a distinctive white throat tuft, famed for its extraordinarily varied, bell-like and mechanical song.
songbird
Indian Ringneck Parakeet
A slender, long-tailed green parakeet native to the Indian subcontinent, best known for the males' distinctive rose-and-black neck ring.
parrot
Canada Warbler
A slate-gray and yellow warbler notable for the bold necklace of black streaking across its breast and the yellow "spectacles" framing its eyes.
songbird
Common Pheasant
A large, long-tailed gamebird; males are strikingly iridescent with a bare red face, while females are cryptically mottled brown.
gamebird
Great Potoo
The largest potoo, a nocturnal bird that perches upright on bare branches by day, camouflaged as a broken stub, and gives an eerie, growling call at night.
other
Snow Bunting
The northernmost-breeding songbird in the world, strikingly white in summer plumage and warm rusty-brown in winter flocks.
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
Tomtit
A small, big-headed New Zealand forest bird, the male boldly black-and-white or black-and-yellow depending on region, often seen perched quietly before darting after insects.
songbird
Common Pauraque
A resident Rio Grande Valley nightjar often spotted along roadsides at night by its reflective red eyeshine.
other
Black Skimmer
A unique black-and-white coastal bird with an oversized red-and-black bill whose lower mandible is longer than the upper, used to skim fish from the water's surface in flight.
seabird
Carmine Bee-eater
A dazzling, migratory African bee-eater with vivid carmine-pink plumage, a turquoise crown and throat, and long tail streamers, often seen riding on the backs of large animals to catch flushed insects.
other
Chihuahuan Raven
A desert grassland raven, smaller than the Common Raven, with white-based neck feathers normally hidden beneath black plumage.
songbird
Kaka
A large, olive-brown New Zealand forest parrot with brilliant crimson underwings, related to the alpine kea and known for its raucous calls and playful, acrobatic behavior.
parrot
Superb Lyrebird
Australia's celebrated rainforest songbird, famous for its extravagant tail and uncanny ability to mimic almost any sound it hears.
songbird
Sagebrush Sparrow
A gray-headed, sagebrush-obligate sparrow that runs on the ground with its tail cocked, split from Bell's Sparrow in 2013.
songbird
Rose-ringed Parakeet
A slender bright-green parakeet with a long pointed tail; males sport a narrow black-and-pink neck ring.
parrot