Bird Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ birds — with size, habitat, diet, voice, behavior, and the field marks that tell them apart.
Northern Cardinal
A brilliant all-red songbird with a prominent crest and thick orange-red bill, common at backyard feeders across the eastern and central U.S.
songbird
Red-headed Woodpecker
A striking, boldly patterned woodpecker with an entirely crimson head and a strongly contrasting black-and-white body, now declining across much of its range.
woodpecker
Purple-crested Turaco
A glossy green forest bird of southeastern Africa with a rounded purple crest and crimson flight feathers that flash brilliantly in flight.
other
Tropical Kingbird
A common, widespread tropical flycatcher with a gray head, olive back, lemon-yellow belly, and a rapid twittering call, nearly identical to Couch's Kingbird.
songbird
Song Thrush
A warm brown, spot-breasted garden thrush famous for smashing snail shells on favorite stone "anvils" and for its loud, repetitive song.
songbird
Royal Tern
A large, orange-billed tern of sandy beaches and estuaries, second in size only to the Caspian Tern, often seen with a shaggy black crest streaming in the wind.
seabird
Sora
A secretive, plump little marsh rail with a short yellow bill, black face mask, and gray-brown streaked body.
wading-bird
Rock Bunting
A boldly head-striped bunting of dry, rocky hillsides and vineyards across southern Europe's warmer, hillier terrain.
songbird
Noisy Miner
A grey, black-capped honeyeater that lives in large, highly social, aggressive colonies and often dominates other birds in its territory.
songbird
Paradise Tanager
One of the most vividly multicolored birds in the Amazon, with a turquoise head, black back, sky-blue underparts, and a glowing yellow-to-red rump.
songbird
Sedge Wren
A tiny, secretive wren of wet sedge meadows, notable for its erratic breeding movements and finely streaked crown.
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
Rainbow Lorikeet
A brilliantly multicolored Australian parrot with a deep blue head, green wings, and an orange breast band, common in gardens and flowering trees.
parrot
Northern Fulmar
A stocky, gull-like tube-nosed seabird of northern oceans, recognized by its stiff, straight-winged gliding flight low over the waves.
seabird
Plumbeous Vireo
The grayest member of the former 'Solitary Vireo' complex, an interior western species of pine-oak forest with white spectacles and no olive or yellow tones.
songbird
Pale Chanting Goshawk
A pale gray hawk of southern Africa's arid regions, known for its melodious whistled call and habit of hunting alongside mammals that flush prey.
raptor
Rose-coloured Starling
A striking pink-and-black starling that breeds in huge, irruptive colonies often tied to outbreaks of locusts and grasshoppers.
songbird
Sedge Warbler
A streaky wetland warbler with a bold cream eyebrow stripe, known for its fast, chattering, mimicry-rich song often delivered in a brief fluttering song-flight.
songbird
Southern Carmine Bee-eater
A spectacular pink-and-turquoise bee-eater of southern Africa that forms enormous cliffside breeding colonies along major rivers.
other
Snow Petrel
An entirely pure-white seabird of the Antarctic pack ice, one of only a handful of bird species that breed farther south than almost any other on Earth.
seabird
Pine Warbler
A softly plumaged, olive-yellow warbler tightly tied to pine forests, notable among warblers for regularly eating seeds and visiting bird feeders.
songbird
Spotted Towhee
The western counterpart to the Eastern Towhee, distinguished by bold white spotting on its black back and wings.
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
Northern Harrier
A slim, low-flying hawk of open marshes and fields, identified by its owl-like facial disc and white rump patch.
raptor
Sooty Tern
A truly pelagic tern with sooty black-brown upperparts and crisp white underparts that spends most of its life on the wing far out over tropical seas.
seabird
New Holland Honeyeater
A lively black-and-white honeyeater with a bold white eye, yellow flashes in the wings and tail, and a habit of constantly flitting between flowers.
songbird
Screech Owl
A small, well-camouflaged, tufted owl of the Americas known for its distinctive quavering trills rather than an actual screech.
owl
Noisy Pitta
A brilliantly coloured, shy rainforest ground bird known for its loud 'walk-to-work' call and habit of smashing snails on rocks.
songbird
Reed Bunting
A slim bunting of reedbeds and wetlands, with breeding males sporting a bold black head and white collar.
songbird
Pied-billed Grebe
A chunky, secretive brown grebe of the Americas, named for its thick, pale bill marked with a black ring in the breeding season.
waterfowl
Say's Phoebe
A soft cinnamon-bellied flycatcher of open, dry western landscapes that often nests on cliffs, barns, and abandoned buildings.
songbird
Oriental Magpie-Robin
A bold black-and-white songster related to robins and chats, prized for its rich, melodious dawn song.
songbird
Red-winged Blackbird
A glossy black marsh bird whose males display bold red-and-yellow shoulder patches while perched and singing atop cattails.
songbird
Red-and-yellow Barbet
A vividly patterned East African barbet with a scarlet head, black-spotted yellow underparts, and a habit of nesting in termite mounds.
other
Palm-nut Vulture
An unusual, mostly fruit-eating vulture with black-and-white plumage that lives near oil palms and waterways in West and Central Africa.
raptor
Sanderling
The pale, plump little sandpiper that chases retreating waves on sandy beaches worldwide, running like a wind-up toy to snatch food from the wet sand.
shorebird
Scarlet-chested Sunbird
A widespread African sunbird whose male shows a brilliant scarlet throat patch glowing against otherwise sooty-black plumage.
songbird
Pine Grosbeak
A large, gentle, slow-moving finch of northern conifer forests, with rosy-red males and mustard-gray females.
songbird
Painted Redstart
A striking black warbler with a bright red breast patch and bold white wing patch, common in oak canyons of the Southwest.
songbird
Spangled Cotinga
A glittering turquoise-blue cotinga of the Amazonian canopy, males marked with a dark purple throat patch and a scattering of spangled blue feather edges.
songbird
Snail Kite
A marsh-dwelling raptor with a slender, deeply hooked bill perfectly shaped for extracting apple snails from their shells.
raptor
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
Seaside Sparrow
A large, dark, long-billed sparrow that never leaves the tidal salt marshes of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts.
songbird
Sharp-shinned Hawk
North America's smallest accipiter, a compact, forest-dwelling hawk built for quick, agile pursuit of small songbirds.
raptor
Roseate Tern
A slender, pale tern with very long tail streamers and a faint rosy blush on the breast, prized by birders for its elegant, almost ghostly flight.
seabird
Southern Lapwing
A bold, noisy lapwing of South American grasslands and wetlands, easily recognized by its black chest markings, red eye-ring, and loud alarm calls.
shorebird
Pileated Woodpecker
North America's largest common woodpecker, a crow-sized, mostly black bird with a flaming red crest, famous for excavating large rectangular holes in dead trees.
woodpecker
Royal Spoonbill
A large white wading bird of Australasia with a distinctive black, spoon-shaped bill that it sweeps through shallow water to feel for prey.
wading-bird