Bird Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ birds — with size, habitat, diet, voice, behavior, and the field marks that tell them apart.
Firecrest
A tiny, jewel-like woodland bird closely related to the Goldcrest, but brighter and more boldly patterned with a striking white eyebrow stripe and black eye mask.
songbird
Black-faced Spoonbill
One of the rarest spoonbills in the world, a white East Asian wading bird with a black spatulate bill that breeds on a handful of small islands off the Korean Peninsula.
wading-bird
Cinereous Vulture
One of the largest flying birds on Earth, a huge dark vulture of mountains and steppe from Iberia to East Asia.
raptor
Brown-headed Nuthatch
A tiny brown-capped nuthatch of southeastern pine forests, notable as one of the few birds known to use tools.
songbird
Blue-crowned Motmot
A striking, sluggish forest bird with a black-bordered blue crown, greenish body, and a long, distinctive racket-tipped tail that it swings like a pendulum.
other
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
Shoebill
An enormous, prehistoric-looking wading bird of African swamps, famous for its massive shoe-shaped bill and statue-like patience while hunting.
wading-bird
Grey Crowned-Crane
A dazzling African crane with a spectacular crown of stiff golden feathers, a grey body, and vivid red and white cheek patches; the national bird of Uganda.
wading-bird
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
African Spoonbill
An all-white African wading bird with a bare red face and a distinctive grey spoon-shaped bill, common on lakes and rivers across the continent.
wading-bird
Sooty Shearwater
A dark, sooty-brown shearwater famous for one of the longest annual migrations of any bird, tracing a huge figure-eight loop across entire ocean basins.
seabird
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
Red-capped Cardinal
A striking black-and-white bird with a brilliant red head, throat, and nape, commonly seen along Amazonian rivers and lake edges despite not being a true cardinal.
songbird
Great White Pelican
A massive white pelican of Old World wetlands with a wingspan among the largest of any bird, tinged pink in breeding season and prone to spectacular coordinated group fishing.
seabird
Island Scrub-Jay
A large, deep-blue scrub-jay found only on Santa Cruz Island off the California coast, the most range-restricted bird in the continental United States.
songbird
European Robin
A small, plump songbird with a bright orange-red face and breast, one of the most familiar and beloved garden birds in Europe.
songbird
Peregrine Falcon
The fastest animal on Earth, this powerful falcon stoops on other birds at speeds exceeding 300 km/h (200 mph).
raptor
Great Black-backed Gull
The largest gull in the world, an imposing, dark-backed predator of the North Atlantic coast that preys on other birds as readily as it scavenges.
seabird
European Bee-eater
One of Europe's most vividly colored birds, a swallow-shaped hunter of flying insects with chestnut, yellow, and turquoise plumage.
other
Tawny Frogmouth
A nocturnal bird with mottled grey, brown, and white plumage that mimics broken bark, a wide gaping mouth, and large yellow eyes, often mistaken for an owl.
other
Wattled Jacana
A chestnut-and-black marsh bird with extraordinarily long toes that let it walk across floating lily pads, notable for its role-reversed breeding system.
wading-bird
Wompoo Fruit Dove
The largest of Australia's fruit doves, a spectacular rainforest bird with a grey head, deep purple-magenta breast, yellow-green back, and yellow-striped belly.
other
Speckled Mousebird
The Speckled Mousebird is a common African bird with a long tail and soft grey-brown plumage that scurries through foliage in acrobatic little flocks, mouse-like.
other
Sunbittern
A cryptically patterned streamside bird that, when it spreads its wings, reveals stunning chestnut, black, and white "sunburst" eye-spots used in dramatic display.
wading-bird