Olive-chested Flycatcher

A small bird with a very long blue tail that is held cocked. Breeding male has a bright pale-blue helmet, black breast, purple back, and chestnut shoulders. Small pale tips are sometimes visible on the tail. Over much of the species’s inland range, females are overall grayish birds with pale fronts and long blue tails; however, females of the subspecies found in the sandstone regions of the Kimberley and Arnhem Land have contrasting blue crowns and backs. This species occurs over much of arid inland Australia and is found in open vegetation.

Medium-sized finch. Gray above with cinnamon underparts, a white center to the belly, and a white-tipped tail. Note the long white eyebrow that becomes cinnamon behind the eye and the white moustache stripe.  Favors shrubby areas and open woodland near water, but also frequents gardens. Sings a series of three notes: “tweet tweet-chew,” or “Who dressed you?”

A large forest thrush whose name describes its key feature; males are black and females are brown, but both have flashing silvery wings. Bright orange bill and eyering are eye-catching in dark forests. Forages quietly in the understory of montane and submontane broadleaf evergreen forests. Often solitary, occasionally in flocks in the winter. Tends not to visit gardens and parks like Tibetan and Chinese blackbirds, but does occasionally visit feeders at hides. Sweet, “thrushy” song consists of warbled phrases, sometimes with a slightly scratchy quality.