Bird Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ birds — with size, habitat, diet, voice, behavior, and the field marks that tell them apart.
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
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
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
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
Pionus Parrot
A stocky, short-tailed parrot genus from Central and South America, typified by the Blue-headed Parrot's cobalt-blue head and red undertail coverts.
parrot
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
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
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
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
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
Forster's Tern
A medium-sized tern that breeds almost entirely within North America, distinguished from the similar Common Tern by its pale, silvery wingtips and orange legs.
seabird
Common Tern
A widespread, medium-sized tern found across North America, Europe, and Asia, with a black cap, red-orange bill, and deeply forked tail typical of the group.
seabird
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
Saffron Finch
A bright yellow, open-country finch-like tanager with an orange-tinged crown in males, common in parks, savanna, and grassland across South America.
songbird
Great Grey Owl
The tallest owl in North America by length, a huge grey ghost of the northern forests famed for its enormous facial disc and vole-hunting by sound.
owl
Chestnut-mandibled Toucan
One of the largest toucans in the Americas, with black plumage, a yellow bib, and a long bill that is mostly black above with a distinctive chestnut-brown lower mandible.
other
Turquoise Cotinga
A dazzling, range-restricted cotinga whose male glows turquoise-blue with a rich purple throat and breast patch, found only in a small area of southern Central America.
songbird
Kelp Gull
A widespread Southern Hemisphere gull with a black back and white head, ecologically similar to the Great Black-backed Gull of the north, and a rare vagrant to the Gulf Coast of North America.
seabird
Franklin's Gull
A small, dapper prairie-nesting gull, sometimes called the 'prairie dove,' that undertakes one of the longest migrations of any gull, wintering along the Pacific coast of South America.
seabird
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
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
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
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
Green Kingfisher
The smallest kingfisher in the United States, a dark green, white-spotted bird of quiet streams along the southern borderlands.
other