Bird Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ birds — with size, habitat, diet, voice, behavior, and the field marks that tell them apart.
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
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
Common Grackle
A large, iridescent blackbird with a long keel-shaped tail and pale yellow eyes, common across eastern and central North America.
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
Mourning Dove
A slender, soft grayish-brown dove with a long pointed tail, one of the most widespread and familiar birds in North America, named for its low, mournful cooing call.
other
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