Bird Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ birds — with size, habitat, diet, voice, behavior, and the field marks that tell them apart.
Costa's Hummingbird
A desert-dwelling hummingbird whose male sports a vivid violet-purple crown and gorget extended into flared mustache-like streamers.
hummingbird
Common Swift
A sooty-brown, scythe-winged aerial specialist that spends nearly its entire life airborne, screaming past rooftops in fast, wheeling parties.
other
Common Whitethroat
An animated scrubland warbler with a grey head, bright white throat, and chestnut-fringed wings, often seen bursting into a brief song-flight above the hedgerow.
songbird
Black-necked Stork
A tall, striking black-and-white stork with an iridescent black head and neck, found from South Asia to northern Australia, where it is sometimes locally called 'Jabiru.'
wading-bird
California Gull
A medium-large western gull celebrated in Utah folklore for eating a devastating cricket infestation that threatened early Mormon settlers' crops.
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
Cetti's Warbler
A dark, skulking, non-migratory warbler famous for its sudden, explosively loud burst of song erupting from deep within streamside cover.
songbird
Black-throated Blue Warbler
A strikingly two-toned warbler; males are deep slate-blue above and jet-black below with a white belly, while females are plain brownish-olive with a small white wing spot.
songbird
Common Tern
A widespread, medium-sized tern found across North America, Europe, and Asia, with a black cap, red-orange bill, and deeply forked tail typical of the group.
seabird
African Grey Parrot
A medium-sized, ash-grey parrot with a striking bright red tail, a white facial patch, and a reputation as one of the most cognitively advanced birds known.
parrot
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
Crested Pigeon
A grey-brown pigeon with a slender upright black crest and iridescent green-and-purple wing patches, whose wings produce a distinctive whistling sound in flight.
other
Agami Heron
One of the most vividly colored herons in the world, a shy forest-swamp specialist with an iridescent green back and deep chestnut underparts.
wading-bird
Amethyst Sunbird
A sunbird that looks almost entirely black at rest but flashes brilliant amethyst-purple on its crown and throat when caught in good light.
songbird
American Redstart
An acrobatic warbler often called 'the butterfly bird' for its habit of fanning bold orange or yellow tail and wing patches while flushing insects.
songbird
Tennessee Warbler
A plain, energetic warbler with a gray head, white eyebrow stripe, and olive back, named for a stray specimen collected in Tennessee though it neither breeds nor regularly winters there.
songbird
Yellow-billed Cuckoo
A slender, secretive woodland bird nicknamed the 'rain crow' for its habit of calling before summer storms, marked by a downcurved yellow lower bill and rufous flight feathers.
other
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
Paradise Shelduck
A large, strikingly dimorphic New Zealand duck, the female with a bright white head and chestnut body and the male mostly black with a grey-flecked back, commonly seen grazing on farmland.
waterfowl
Short-toed Treecreeper
A close relative of the Eurasian Treecreeper, nearly identical in appearance but favouring broadleaf woodland at lower elevations and best identified by its distinct voice.
songbird
Hudsonian Godwit
A dark, elegant godwit famed for one of the longest nonstop migratory flights of any bird, connecting subarctic breeding grounds with wintering areas in southern South America.
shorebird
Helmeted Hornbill
A rare Southeast Asian rainforest hornbill famed for its unique solid ivory casque, extremely long tail streamers, and eerie cackling call, now critically endangered from poaching.
other
Gray Partridge
A round, orange-faced European partridge introduced to North American farm country, best known as the 'Hun' among upland game hunters, with a chestnut horseshoe mark on the male's belly.
gamebird
California Condor
North America's largest flying land bird, an enormous black scavenger with a naked orange-pink head, brought back from the brink of extinction through intensive captive breeding.
raptor