14 birds containing the letter F — each with origin, classification, and notes.
Below are birds that contain the letter F anywhere in the name. Each of the 14 birds below opens to a full profile.
Britain's second most common bird and one of Europe's most abundant — the male in spring is a strikingly handsome bird with a pink-red breast, slate-blue head, and bold white wing bars; males sing a loud, rattling song ending in a distinctive flourish that varies in dialect between regions.
A swift, sharp-winged raptor — including the peregrine, the fastest animal on Earth — with extraordinary diving speeds and a long history as a hunting partner in royal falconry traditions.
A large, handsome thrush that arrives in Britain from Scandinavia each autumn in clattering flocks to feast on hawthorn berries and windfall apples — with its distinctive chestnut back, grey rump, and spotted orange breast, it is one of Britain's most striking winter visitors.
A small, seed-eating songbird with a thick conical beak — including the Galapagos finches that helped Darwin develop natural selection theory, the canaries of pet history, and many beloved garden visitors.
The more brilliant cousin of the goldcrest — the firecrest matches the goldcrest in size (one of Europe's smallest birds) but is more vividly marked; the male has a brilliant orange-red crest stripe flanked by black, white supercilium, and bronze patches on the sides of the neck giving a jewelled appearance; a scarce but increasing breeder in Britain, mainly in spruce woodland in southern England.
A long-legged wading bird whose pink color comes from carotenoid pigments in its food, famous for filter-feeding upside-down and standing on one leg.
A large, long-winged tropical seabird with a remarkable red throat pouch that males inflate like a balloon during courtship, and a well-earned reputation as an aerial pirate that terrorizes other seabirds into dropping their food.
A brilliantly coloured small finch with a crimson face, black and white head, and gleaming yellow wingbars — a specialist seed-eater that uses its narrow bill to extract seeds from thistles and teasels; one of Britain's most beloved garden birds.
Britain's most powerful-billed finch — the hawfinch has a massive, pale bill capable of cracking cherry stones and olive pits that require 50–70 kg of force to split; a bulky, short-tailed finch with rich chestnut, black, and white plumage and a distinctive white wing bar; notoriously shy and elusive, spending most of its time in high tree canopy and often detected only by its sharp call.
A small, jewel-bright Eurasian fishing bird that hovers above water and dives at over 40 km/h to catch small fish, the inspiration for the bullet train's nose cone design.
The black-and-white summer visitor of ancient oak woods — the male pied flycatcher is crisply black above and white below with a bold white forehead patch; the female is brown and white; they arrive from West Africa in late April to breed in old oak trees and nest boxes, making sallying flights to catch insects and raising a brood before departing in late summer.
A small black-and-white seabird with a colorful triangular bill — capable of holding 10+ fish in its beak at once, nesting in cliff burrows by the millions, and increasingly threatened by warming oceans.
A dark, scythe-winged aerial specialist that spends almost its entire life on the wing — eating, sleeping, bathing, and mating in flight — landing only to nest, making it the most aerial bird in the world.
A small, social, vivid Australian songbird with zebra-striped tail feathers and orange cheek patches — a popular cage bird worldwide and the most-studied songbird in neuroscience laboratories.
Try birds that start with F, or end with F. Or browse the full birds index.