Bird Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ birds — with size, habitat, diet, voice, behavior, and the field marks that tell them apart.
Black Vulture
A stocky, all-black scavenger with a bare gray head and short, broad wings, recognized in flight by white patches near the wingtips and quick, choppy flapping.
raptor
Gadwall
A subtly beautiful, medium-sized dabbling duck known for its intricate gray-brown male plumage, black rear, and distinctive white wing patch.
waterfowl
Cassin's Vireo
A western vireo with a subdued gray-green head, white spectacles, and pale yellow flanks, once lumped with Blue-headed and Plumbeous Vireo as the 'Solitary Vireo.'
songbird
Common Merganser
A large, sleek fish-eating duck with a slender hooked, serrated bill; breeding males have a glossy dark green head and clean white body.
waterfowl
Eastern Towhee
A striking sparrow relative with a black hood, rufous flanks, and white belly, known for its 'drink-your-tea' song and rustling leaf-litter foraging.
songbird
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
A tiny, plain-faced olive-gray songbird with a bold white eye-ring and a surprisingly loud, rollicking song from a normally hidden red crown.
songbird
Hooded Merganser
A small, striking fish-eating duck with a large fan-shaped crest, breeding males show a bold black-and-white head patch that they can raise or flatten at will.
waterfowl
Common Nighthawk
A master of aerial acrobatics, the Common Nighthawk is a cryptically patterned nightjar easily recognized by the bold white bars on its long, pointed wings as it hunts insects at dusk.
other
Hooded Warbler
A vivid yellow-faced warbler of eastern forest understory whose males wear a bold black hood, and which flashes white outer tail feathers as it flicks its tail while foraging.
songbird
Hutton's Vireo
A plain, year-round resident vireo of western oak woodlands, easily confused with the Ruby-crowned Kinglet, with a broken white eye-ring and two wing bars.
songbird
Common Shelduck
A large, goose-like duck with a bold white body crossed by a broad chestnut breast band and a glossy dark green head, common along Eurasian coasts.
waterfowl
Red-breasted Merganser
A slender, crested fish-eating duck with a thin serrated bill, breeding males show a shaggy dark green head, white collar, and rusty streaked breast.
waterfowl
Nashville Warbler
A small, active warbler with a gray head, bold white eyering, olive back, and bright yellow underparts, occurring in two disjunct eastern and western breeding populations.
songbird
Canvasback
The Canvasback is a large, elegant diving duck easily recognized by its distinctive long, sloping profile and the male's striking white body, reddish-brown head, and black chest.
waterfowl
Black-capped Vireo
A small vireo of Texas oak scrub with a glossy black cap, bold white spectacles, and a red eye, a conservation success story after habitat restoration and cowbird control.
songbird
Blue-winged Warbler
A bright yellow warbler with blue-gray wings, white wingbars, and a black eyeline, whose expanding range increasingly overlaps and hybridizes with the closely related Golden-winged Warbler.
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
Golden-winged Warbler
A gray-and-white warbler with a bold golden wing patch and yellow crown, once common in shrubby eastern habitat but now steeply declining and prone to hybridizing with Blue-winged Warbler.
songbird
Osprey
A large, fish-eating hawk found near water nearly worldwide, easily known by its white underparts, dark eye-stripe, and dramatic feet-first dive for fish.
raptor
Yellow-throated Warbler
A gray-backed warbler with a bright yellow throat and bold black-and-white face pattern, well adapted for creeping along bark and probing pine needle clusters and Spanish moss.
songbird
Olive-sided Flycatcher
A large, big-headed flycatcher known for its exuberant 'quick, THREE BEERS!' song, often perched high atop a dead conifer snag.
songbird
Least Flycatcher
The smallest and most vocal of the eastern Empidonax flycatchers, easily located by its emphatic, repetitive 'che-BEK' call.
songbird
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
Eastern Phoebe
A plain grayish-brown flycatcher that pumps its tail while perched and famously nests on bridges, eaves, and other man-made structures.
songbird