Bird Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ birds — with size, habitat, diet, voice, behavior, and the field marks that tell them apart.
Clark's Nutcracker
A pale gray high-mountain corvid famous for caching tens of thousands of pine seeds each year and for its remarkable spatial memory.
songbird
Ladder-backed Woodpecker
A small desert woodpecker with a finely barred black-and-white 'ladder' back pattern, well adapted to arid scrub, mesquite, and cactus habitat.
woodpecker
Canada Jay
The official current name for the Gray Jay, a fluffy, remarkably tame boreal-forest corvid famous for hoarding food and visiting campsites.
songbird
Swainson's Hawk
A long-winged prairie hawk famous for one of the longest migrations of any North American raptor, traveling all the way to the pampas of Argentina.
raptor
Turkey Vulture
A large, dark scavenger with a naked red head and a distinctive tilting, V-shaped soaring flight, famed for its exceptional sense of smell.
raptor
Rusty Blackbird
A boreal-breeding blackbird that turns rusty-edged in fall plumage, now one of the most steeply declining songbirds in North America.
songbird
Spotted Owl
A dark-eyed, chocolate-brown forest owl closely tied to old-growth woodland and famous as a flagship species for old-growth conservation debates.
owl
Audubon's Oriole
A secretive yellow-and-black oriole with a full black hood, found in the United States only in the dense brushlands of the lower Rio Grande Valley.
songbird
Cooper's Hawk
A medium-sized woodland hawk that has become a common backyard predator at bird feeders, agile enough to chase prey through dense cover.
raptor
Gray-cheeked Thrush
A cold gray-toned northern thrush that breeds in remote subarctic forest and passes through the US mainly as an inconspicuous migrant.
songbird
Olive Warbler
A pine-forest specialist with a tawny-orange head and black mask, now classified in its own unique family separate from true warblers.
songbird
Hooded Oriole
A slender, long-tailed oriole strongly associated with palm trees, with males showing bright orange-yellow plumage and a black face and bib.
songbird
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
Bronzed Cowbird
A stocky blackbird with a distinctive ruff of neck feathers and striking red eyes that, like other cowbirds, lays its eggs in the nests of other birds.
songbird
Black-throated Gray Warbler
A crisply patterned gray, black, and white warbler of dry western woodlands, with a small yellow spot in front of the eye as its only splash of color.
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
Magnolia Warbler
A boldly patterned warbler with a black-streaked yellow breast and a distinctive black-and-white tail band, best identified from below in flight.
songbird
Black-throated Green Warbler
A bright yellow-faced warbler with an olive-green back and a black throat and bib on breeding males, common in northern conifer and hemlock forests.
songbird
Nelson's Sparrow
A secretive marsh sparrow with an orange face triangle and soft, blurry streaking, breeding in both interior prairie marshes and coastal salt marsh.
songbird
Pine Siskin
A small, heavily streaked brown finch with sharp yellow wing and tail markings, notorious for unpredictable winter irruptions.
songbird
Cedar Waxwing
A sleek, crested, silky-brown songbird with a yellow-tipped tail and waxy red wingtips that travels in nomadic flocks following fruit crops.
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
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
Vesper Sparrow
A streaky grassland sparrow with a white eye-ring, chestnut shoulder patch, and white outer tail feathers, named for its evening song.
songbird