Color, pattern, and posture combine to allow many birds to blend in with their surroundings. This camouflage provides birds with protection from predators, but it also can hide predators from prey.

Camouflage involves a close match in color and pattern between the bird's feather coat and its environment. Birds may resemble the ground, dead leaves, snow, or even bright green foliage.

Willow Ptarmigans molt their mottled brown summer plumage for snow-white feathers that provide camouflage when winter snows arrive. In the spring, as snows melt, they molt again, trading white feathers for summer brown.

Ground-dwelling birds have eggs whose colors and markings often blend in perfectly with the gravel and leaf litter of the ground. Hummingbirds build and decorate their nests with plant down, spider webs, and lichen, giving them the appearance of a branch stub.

Camouflage may be enhanced by posture: the American Bittern's vertical brown stripes resemble dead reeds. The bittern becomes even more reed-like when it stands erect with its bill pointed straight up.

Many birds "freeze" when a predator approaches; by remaining perfectly motionless their coloring helps them avoid being detected.