Meet the world’s animals.

Photos: 12,825 · Stories: 19,540

• Black-chested Prinia Prinia flavicans

  

  A black chest band marks the breeding plumage of this small prinia. In Namibia it searches for insects among branches and leaves in dry acacia scrub and other shrublands.

• Greater Blue-eared Starling Lamprotornis chalybaeus

  A starling with metallic blue-green plumage and yellow eyes, it eats fruit and insects.

• Augur Buzzard Buteo augur

  The Augur Buzzard is notable for its reddish tail and variable underparts. It watches from perches or scans from the air for small prey.

• White-rumped Babbler Turdoides leucopygia

  An eastern African babbler of rocky hill woodland, scrub, riparian cover, and reedbeds. Its scaled breast and white rump and lower belly are useful field marks.

• Common Shelduck Tadorna tadorna

  A coastal duck with a white body, a green-black head and a brown band across its chest.

• Empress Brilliant Heliodoxa imperatrix

  This large hummingbird occurs in humid mountain forests from western Colombia to northwestern Ecuador. It feeds on nectar at flowers.

• Zimmer's Woodcreeper Dendroplex kienerii

  A 2002 taxonomic study treated birds called Dendroplex necopinus as the same species as D. kienerii. Field records under the former name were mainly from tall seasonally flooded forest along Amazonian riverbanks and islands.

• Crested Francolin Ortygornis sephaena

  This francolin walks through shrubland and semi-open areas in southern Africa, searching for seeds and insects. It may raise its tail when excited.

• Pin-tailed Parrot-Finch Erythrura prasina

  Males draw the eye with a green back, blue face, and red rump and tail. The species usually moves in small flocks, which can gather into larger groups when rice seeds ripen.

• Sagebrush Sparrow Artemisiospiza nevadensis

  This sparrow breeds in open sage-dominated shrubsteppe in western North America. During migration and winter it also uses dry scrub with creosote or saltbush.

• Streamer-tailed Tyrant Gubernetes yetapa

  Adults have strikingly elongated central tail feathers. In southern Brazil, a breeding study found that fledged young first foraged independently, then joined mixed-species flocks.

• Yellow-crowned Parakeet Cyanoramphus auriceps

  The Yellow-crowned Parakeet is a green parrot that spends much of its time high in the forest canopy. Its yellow crown and crimson forehead band help identify it.

• Eurasian Collared Dove Streptopelia decaocto

  A pale gray-brown dove with a black neck band. In Britain and Ireland, it is often seen in gardens, parks and farmland.

• Brown-backed Honeyeater Ramsayornis modestus

  This small honeyeater lives in coastal areas of northeastern Australia and New Guinea. It is often seen in flowering trees near water.

• Bobolink Dolichonyx oryzivorus

  Bobolinks breed in North American grasslands and migrate to South America for winter. In breeding plumage, males are marked by a white back and a yellow rear crown.

• Javan Whistling Thrush Myophonus glaucinus

  Myophonus glaucinus is now called the Javan Whistling Thrush. A 2004 species-limits study describes glossy dark blue on the male’s head and upperparts, and reports birds mostly on the ground and ridges at Gunung Gede, Java.

• Inaccessible Finch Nesospiza acunhae

  The Inaccessible Finch lives on Inaccessible Island. Its three island subspecies differ in plumage, bill size, and foods.

• Greater Roadrunner Geococcyx californianus

  A bird that runs through dry scrub and uses its long tail to steer while chasing lizards.

• Laced Woodpecker Picus vittatus

  The Laced Woodpecker has a green back and yellowish underparts. The male has a red crown and nape, while those areas are black in the female.

• Mountain Scops Owl Otus spilocephalus

  The Mountain Scops Owl hides in the middle and lower layers of humid mountain forests and is active at night.

• Rufous Flycatcher-Thrush Stizorhina fraseri

  The Rufous Flycatcher-Thrush is a brownish thrush of humid forest understory.

• Cocha Antshrike Thamnophilus praecox

  This antshrike was photographically documented at Bretaña in Loreto, northeastern Peru, in 2022. The male is black and the female chestnut; the record site was whitewater-flooded forest.

• Streak-eared Bulbul Pycnonotus conradi

  The Streak-eared Bulbul is recorded from Thailand through southern Indochina and the northern and central Malay Peninsula. Accounts describe moist lowland forest as well as open edges and human-modified places.

• Yellow-fronted Canary Crithagra mozambica

  This small, social finch has a bright yellow face and belly set off by black lines on its head. In its native African range, it forages in flocks.