Bird Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ birds — with size, habitat, diet, voice, behavior, and the field marks that tell them apart.
Arctic Tern
A slender, graceful tern famous for undertaking the longest migration of any animal, traveling from Arctic breeding grounds to Antarctic waters and back each year.
seabird
Black Rosy-Finch
The darkest of the three rosy-finches, breeding only in a narrow band of high central Rocky Mountain peaks and considered especially vulnerable to a warming climate.
songbird
American Golden-Plover
A slim, elegant plover with gold-spangled upperparts that undertakes one of the longest migrations of any shorebird, between Arctic tundra and South American grasslands.
shorebird
Turquoise-browed Motmot
A brilliantly colored motmot of dry Central American forest, with a turquoise brow stripe, cinnamon underparts, and a long tail ending in distinctive bare-shafted racket tips.
other
Gunnison Sage-Grouse
A rare, range-restricted sage-grouse confined to a handful of sites in southwestern Colorado and adjacent Utah, distinguished from its larger relative by longer, showier display plumes.
gamebird
Golden-headed Quetzal
An Andean cloud-forest quetzal with iridescent green plumage, a golden-bronze sheen on the crown, and a crimson-red breast, but lacking the extremely long tail streamers of the Resplendent Quetzal.
other
Dalmatian Pelican
The largest of the world's pelican species, a greyish-white giant with shaggy curled nape feathers and a striking orange-red pouch, once seriously threatened but now slowly recovering.
seabird
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
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
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
Australasian Figbird
A stocky oriole relative with a patch of bare red or pink skin around the eye; males show a grey head and olive-green body, while females are streaky brown, and both gather in noisy flocks at fruiting fig trees.
songbird
Pelagic Cormorant
A slim, iridescent black-green cormorant of rugged North Pacific coastlines, showing a thin bill and small head crests in breeding plumage, nesting precariously on narrow sea cliff ledges.
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
Crowned Eagle
A powerful African forest eagle with short, rounded wings for maneuvering below the canopy, the Crowned Eagle is considered pound-for-pound one of the continent's most formidable raptors and a leading predator of monkeys.
raptor
Tree Pipit
A streaky ground-feeding songbird closely resembling the Meadow Pipit, but distinguished by its habit of singing from treetops during a memorable rising and parachuting display flight.
songbird
Saddleback
A glossy black New Zealand forest bird with a bold chestnut "saddle" across its back and bright orange-red wattles, now surviving mainly on predator-free islands after near extinction on the mainland.
songbird
Chukar
A bold, boldly barred Eurasian partridge introduced to the arid, rocky western United States, known for its distinctive black facial necklace and cackling call echoing across canyon terrain.
gamebird
Bar-tailed Godwit
A long-billed godwit famous for making the longest recorded nonstop migratory flights of any bird, connecting Arctic breeding grounds with wintering coasts across the Old World and Australasia.
shorebird
Weka
A large, bold, flightless New Zealand rail with rich brown plumage, famous for its cheeky, opportunistic curiosity and its habit of investigating and sometimes stealing unattended items from campsites.
other