Meet the world’s animals.

Photos: 12,825 · Stories: 19,540

• Band-tailed Nighthawk Nyctiprogne leucopyga

  

  The Band-tailed Nighthawk is a brown, nocturnal bird with a white band on its tail. In Loreto, northern Peru, it catches insects while flying over rivers and lakes at night.

• Ringed Woodpecker Celeus torquatus

  The Ringed Woodpecker is a forest woodpecker of the Amazon basin. It has black and pale bars across the back and a cinnamon-colored head.

• Fox's Weaver Ploceus spekeoides

  This weaver has been recorded in northeastern Uganda. Males show a black facial mask and yellow rump, and records link the bird with Whistling-thorn Acacia grasslands.

• Grey Crested Tit Lophophanes dichrous

  This mountain tit has a gray crest and back and a white half-collar. Throat and underpart colors vary among regional forms.

• Hispaniolan Mango Anthracothorax dominicus

  The Hispaniolan Mango is a large hummingbird found on Hispaniola. Males show an iridescent green throat, while females differ in tail and underpart pattern.

• Rufous-breasted Wren Pheugopedius rutilus

  This small wren ranges from Central America into northern South America. It searches for small invertebrates among vines and leaf litter near the ground.

• Cook's Swift Apus cooki

  Cook's Swift has long, sickle-shaped wings and a tail that closes to a needle-like point. It flies high over mountains, woodland, towns, and coasts, catching insects in the air.

• Mountain White-eye Zosterops montanus

  The Mountain White-eye is described from Wallacea, the Greater Sundas, and the Philippines. The KOMIU profile places it in primary forest on high mountains.

• Mediterranean Gull Ichthyaetus melanocephalus

  The Mediterranean Gull is also recorded around the UK’s coasts and waters. Adults in breeding plumage stand out by their black heads and red bills.

• Banded Fruit Dove Ptilinopus cinctus

  The Banded Fruit Dove has a white head and neck, a black back, and grey underparts. Its sharply contrasting plumage makes it distinctive.

• Sunda Cuckooshrike Coracina larvata

  This dark gray bird lives in highland forest and sometimes moves through the upper forest with mixed-species flocks.

• Island Monarch Monarcha cinerascens

  This monarch ranges across islands from Indonesia to Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. It inhabits open island forests, and plumage tones vary among island subspecies.

• Wood Snipe Gallinago nemoricola

  A little-known snipe that breeds in Himalayan alpine regions. A study in an alpine meadow in Sichuan, China, found breeding birds foraging where soil fauna were more abundant.

• Blue-winged Teal Spatula discors

  A small duck of shallow ponds and wetlands in North America. Breeding males have blue-grey heads; females and nonbreeding males are patterned brown.

• Sclater's Lark Spizocorys sclateri

  A lark of dry, open landscapes in western southern Africa. In its core range it is mostly sedentary or moves only locally.

• Crested Owl Lophostrix cristata

  The Crested Owl has a chestnut-brown body and long ear tufts and is active at night in humid forest. It hunts insects and small animals from a perch.

• Blue-faced Malkoha Phaenicophaeus viridirostris

  A long-tailed cuckoo of southern India and Sri Lanka, found from lowlands to foothills and often in thorn scrub or second growth.

• Dambo Cisticola Cisticola dambo

  The Dambo Cisticola has a very long black tail, and the breeding male gives a distinctive song and aerial display. In a 1931 survey along the Congo–Zambezi divide, birds bred in open flats with short grass; records extended from Nasondoye to eastern Angola.

• Snowy Egret Egretta thula

  A slender white heron with black legs and bright yellow feet that searches shallow water for small aquatic animals.

• Brown-cheeked Laughingthrush Trochalopteron henrici

  It is gray-brown with dark chestnut cheeks, a broad white moustachial stripe, and a chestnut area near the tail. The account places its main range in southern and eastern Tibet; Arunachal Pradesh is represented by one record.

• Rufous-brown Solitaire Cichlopsis leucogenys

  This thrush has a disjunct range from northern South America through Peru to Brazil. In Peru it inhabits premontane forest and was recorded at Megantoni, Cusco, in 2022. Its body is ochraceous-brown, with a yellow bill, eye-ring, and legs.

• Hooded Munia Lonchura spectabilis

  The Hooded Munia is a small finch found in New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago. It has a dark hood and orange rump and feeds mainly on seeds in grasslands.

• Black Francolin Francolinus francolinus

  This ground-dwelling pheasant relative moves through grasslands and shrublands. Males are black and chestnut, while females are golden-brown with black and white spots, so the sexes look very different.

• Metallic Starling Aplonis metallica

  The Metallic Starling is a starling with glossy black adult plumage that reflects green or purple. Birds travel from New Guinea to breed in coastal lowlands of northern Queensland.