Bird Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ birds — with size, habitat, diet, voice, behavior, and the field marks that tell them apart.
Semipalmated Plover
A small, compact plover with a single black breast band and orange legs, common on beaches and mudflats throughout the Americas during migration.
shorebird
Canada Goose
A familiar large goose with a black head and neck, white chinstrap, and brown body, common on lawns and lakes across North America.
waterfowl
Great Horned Owl
A powerful, large-eared owl found across nearly every habitat in the Americas, capable of taking prey larger than itself.
owl
Peruvian Pelican
A large, dark pelican of the cold, productive Humboldt Current, closely tied to the abundance of anchoveta along the Pacific coast of South America.
seabird
Chuck-will's-widow
The largest nightjar in North America, best known for its far-carrying, repetitive nighttime call that gives the bird its name.
other
Great-tailed Grackle
A large, glossy, long-tailed blackbird with a loud, varied voice that has rapidly expanded across urban and agricultural North America.
songbird
Common Grackle
A large, iridescent blackbird with a long keel-shaped tail and pale yellow eyes, common across eastern and central North America.
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
European Starling
A stocky, iridescent black songbird introduced to North America in the 1890s, known for its speckled winter plumage, versatile mimicry, and massive flocks.
songbird
Lesser Black-backed Gull
A medium-large European gull with a dark slate mantle and yellow legs, increasingly common as a wintering visitor to North America in recent decades.
seabird
Savannah Sparrow
A streaky, ground-dwelling sparrow with a yellow eyebrow patch and short notched tail, widespread across open grassy habitats in North America.
songbird
Black-headed Gull
An abundant Eurasian gull, despite its name actually sporting a chocolate-brown (not black) hood, and a rare but regular visitor to eastern North America.
seabird
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
Baltimore Oriole
A brilliant flame-orange and black songbird of eastern North America, named for the heraldic colors of Lord Baltimore, known for its hanging pouch nest.
songbird
Swainson's Thrush
A buffy-faced forest thrush known for its upward-spiraling flute-like song and heavy nocturnal migration through much of North America.
songbird
Eurasian Collared-Dove
A pale, sandy-gray dove with a distinctive black half-collar on the nape, rapidly expanding across North America since escaping captivity in Florida in the 1980s.
other
Saltmarsh Sparrow
A tidal marsh specialist with a bright orange face and crisp streaked breast, among the most threatened songbirds in North America due to sea level rise.
songbird
Summer Tanager
The only entirely red bird in North America, the Summer Tanager male is a rosy-red songbird known for specializing in catching and de-stinging bees and wasps.
songbird
Ruby-throated Hummingbird
The only hummingbird that regularly breeds in eastern North America, with males showing a brilliant iridescent ruby-red throat that can flash black in poor light.
hummingbird
Snowy Egret
A small, brilliant white egret of the Americas known for its black bill and legs paired with striking bright yellow feet, nicknamed its 'golden slippers.'
wading-bird
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
Chimney Swift
A dark, cigar-shaped aerial bird that nests almost exclusively in chimneys across eastern North America, spending nearly its entire life on the wing.
other
Tufted Duck
A compact Eurasian diving duck with a drooping head tuft, the drake strikingly patterned in black and white and occasionally found among scaup flocks in North America.
waterfowl
Western Gull
A large, dark-backed gull restricted almost entirely to the Pacific coast of North America, a common sight on rocky shorelines and piers from Washington to Baja California.
seabird