Few bird families capture the imagination quite like finches, these seed-cracking specialists whose remarkable diversity brings vibrancy to Britain's skies year-round. With their distinctive conical ...

A swift and skilful hunter of the Australian skies, this compact falcon rockets through city parks and woodlands at high speed to catch birds mid-flight. The Australian Hobby is a sleek, medium-sized ...

The Rainbow Lorikeet is a vibrant, small parrot with striking multicoloured plumage. Its head is deep blue, contrasting with a bright green back, wings, and tail. The chest is bold orange-red, while ...

Look at the bill: a Dunnock's is thin and pointed, a House Sparrow's short and chunky. A Dunnock also has a grey head and breast and creeps about alone or in pairs, while House Sparrows go about in ...

In Christian art the Goldfinch stands for Christ's Passion, and it appears in hundreds of devotional pictures, Raphael's Madonna of the Goldfinch among them. Here is what it meant, where those ...

A Goldfinch sounds tinkling: a quick two- or three-note call and a fast, liquid song of twitters, trills and buzzes. Listen to recordings of the song, calls and young birds, and learn when, where and ...

The Oregon Junco, the Slate-colored Junco and four other forms are all one species, the Dark-eyed Junco. How to recognize each one, male and female, where each lives, the Guadalupe Junco, and how ...

Identify any bird by photo, sound, or description — then learn what it eats, how to attract it, and when it's near you. From ...

The birds people mix up most, side by side, with the one feature that settles each pair: Kestrel or Sparrowhawk, Raven or ...

A bright rufous cap, a razor-clean white eyebrow, and a bold black eye-stripe make the breeding Chipping Sparrow one of the most crisply marked small birds in North America. Once the most common city ...

Few small terns undergo a more dramatic seasonal transformation than the White-winged Tern — in breeding plumage, its jet-black body contrasts with brilliant white wings and rump in a pattern unlike ...

A shorebird that looks like a yellowlegs, feeds like a dowitcher, and belongs to neither group, the Stilt Sandpiper is one of North America's most distinctive waders. Its long greenish-yellow legs, ...