Pemba Sunbird

Cinnyris pembae

Male is iridescent green above and dark below, with a purple band across the breast. Female is nondescript, with a pale eyebrow and blurry streaking across the pale yellowish underparts. Restricted to the island of Pemba, where it is common in all habitats. Similar to Tsavo and Violet-breasted Sunbirds, but separated by range. Song is a typical sunbird high-pitched jumble; also gives “tsik” calls. 

Taxonomy

Scientific name
Cinnyris pembae
Authority
Reichenow, 1905
Order
Passeriformes
Family
Nectariniidae
Genus
Cinnyris

Range and habitat

Migration
Resident species

Conservation

Population trend
stable

Photos

Distribution

Bird Calls

Other Birds

Three-banded Courser

Three-banded Courser

Rhinoptilus cinctus

Elegant, cryptic, long-legged, upland shorebird. Shows a dark upperwing and a largely white underwing in flight. Found in savanna and woodland, including some miombo. Nocturnal species that spends the day roosting under a thick bush. Calls at night with a repeated metallic “chik.” Somewhat similar to Double-banded Courser but is nocturnal and has a more complex and striped head and chest pattern.

Rufous-browed Flycatcher

Rufous-browed Flycatcher

Anthipes solitaris

Unique-looking flycatcher with a gleamingly clean white throat and a strong rusty orange tinge to the brow and forehead. Overlaps with closely related White-gorgeted Flycatcher but lacks that species’s gray face and black border to the white throat patch. Inhabits foothill and montane forests, where it forages close to the ground in lower vegetation. Both flycatches and gleans for prey more actively. Song is a high, thin series of whistles; a simple version is “tee-tee-tew’, to which additional phrases may be added. Vocal for a flycatcher, and calls often, giving harsh rattles, chips and chiks, and high thin notes.

MacGillivray's Prion

MacGillivray's Prion

Pachyptila macgillivrayi

A pale powder-blue-and-white seabird with a faint grayish dark “M” across the upperwings. Note the dark blue “thumb mark” collar, the blue eye-stripe, the white eyebrow, the white throat, and the grayish cap. Restricted to two known breeding islands, Saint Paul in the South Indian Ocean, and Gough in the South Atlantic. Almost identical to Antarctic Prion, but bulkier and more heavy-chested, with a slightly wider bill. All but inseparable from Salvin’s Prion, with which it shares the breeding island of Gough, and with which it was once considered one species; MacGillivray’s is incrementally broader-billed, but birds seen at sea may not be identifiable.

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