Bird Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ birds — with size, habitat, diet, voice, behavior, and the field marks that tell them apart.
Eastern Spinebill
A small honeyeater with a long, slender downcurved bill, a chestnut throat patch, and black, white, and rufous plumage, often seen hovering at flowers.
songbird
Eastern Bluebird
A small thrush with vivid blue upperparts and a warm rusty-orange breast, often seen perched on fences and wires over open fields.
songbird
Emerald Toucanet
A small, compact toucan relative clothed almost entirely in bright green plumage, with a bicolored bill and, in many populations, a blue-tinged throat.
other
Egyptian Vulture
A small, distinctive Old World vulture with dirty-white plumage and a bare yellow face, notable for using tools to crack open eggs.
raptor
Black-capped Chickadee
A small, energetic bird with a black cap and bib, white cheeks, and gray back, known for its cheerful "chick-a-dee-dee" call.
songbird
Lesser Yellowlegs
A slim, delicate sandpiper with bright yellow legs, essentially a smaller, daintier version of the Greater Yellowlegs with a shorter, straighter bill.
shorebird
White-plumed Honeyeater
A small olive-yellow honeyeater with a slender white crescent-shaped plume on the side of the neck, common near inland rivers and eucalypts.
songbird
Sociable Weaver
A small Kalahari finch-weaver famous for building the largest communal stick nests of any bird, sometimes housing hundreds of pairs.
songbird
Red-browed Finch
An olive-grey finch with a bright red rump, bill, and eyebrow stripe, often seen in small flocks along forest edges.
songbird
Marsh Wren
A small, energetic wren of cattail marshes, known for its loud, gurgling song and the male's habit of building multiple decoy nests.
songbird
Harlequin Duck
A small, compact sea duck with intricately patterned slate-blue, chestnut, and white plumage, at home in whitewater rivers and pounding surf.
waterfowl
Horned Puffin
A black-and-white North Pacific puffin with a bright orange-and-yellow bill and a small dark 'horn' of skin above each eye.
seabird
House Wren
A small, plain brown wren with fine dark barring on the wings and tail, known for its bubbly song and readiness to nest in birdhouses.
songbird
Gouldian Finch
A small Australian grassland finch renowned for its extraordinarily vivid rainbow plumage of purple, yellow, green, and a red or black head.
songbird
Australian Wood Duck
A distinctive grey-brown duck with a dark chocolate head and small mane, more often seen grazing on grass than swimming.
waterfowl
Chinese Pond-Heron
A small East Asian heron that transforms from a plain streaky brown bird into a maroon-and-slate breeding beauty each spring.
wading-bird
Common Ringed Plover
A small Eurasian plover with a single black breast band and orange legs, closely resembling its American counterpart, the Semipalmated Plover.
shorebird
Purple-backed Fairywren
A close relative of the Variegated Fairywren adapted to Australia's arid interior, with breeding males showing purplish-blue tones and a small chestnut shoulder patch.
songbird
Ruby-topaz Hummingbird
A small, dazzling hummingbird whose male sports a fiery ruby-red crown and glowing golden-topaz throat that shift dramatically with the angle of light.
hummingbird
Spotted Sandpiper
A small, constantly bobbing sandpiper of North American shorelines, easily recognized in breeding plumage by the bold dark spots covering its white underparts.
shorebird
Ruddy Duck
A small, chunky stiff-tailed diving duck; breeding males show a chestnut body, black cap, white cheeks, and a bright blue bill.
waterfowl
Mew Gull
A small, gentle-faced gull of the Pacific Northwest, recently split from the Eurasian Common Gull and now officially known as the Short-billed Gull.
seabird
Manx Shearwater
A small, sharply black-and-white shearwater of the North Atlantic that skims low over waves with stiff wingbeats, nesting in burrows on grassy offshore islands.
seabird
Marbled Murrelet
A small North Pacific seabird unique among auks for nesting solitarily high in the mossy branches of old-growth conifers, far from the coast.
seabird