Gray-hooded Babbler
Cyanoderma bicolor
A small babbler of tropical lowland and foothill rainforests on Borneo. Especially common in disturbed forest. Reddish-brown upperparts with dark gray hood, chest, and buffy belly. Bare blue skin around the eye, with vocalizing birds also showing blue skin on the neck. Typically encountered as it searches dead leaves in the understorey. Gray-headed Babbler is somewhat similar but has a pale iris and lacks blue skin around the eyes. Song is an ethereal, owl-like series of hooting trills, but also gives noisy rattling and chipping call notes.
Taxonomy
- Scientific name
- Cyanoderma bicolor
- Authority
- (Blyth, 1865)
- Order
- Passeriformes
- Family
- Leiothrichidae
- Genus
- Cyanoderma
Range and habitat
- Migration
- Resident species
Conservation
- Population trend
- declining
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
Other Birds
White-cheeked Pintail
Anas bahamensis
Very distinctive duck with its white cheeks, throat, and tail contrasting with its brown body. The bill is dark with red sides at the base. In flight shows pale brown and green patches on the wings. Both sexes similar. Found in both fresh and saline wetlands.
Rufous-bellied Swallow
Cecropis badia
Brightly-colored swallow found on the Malay Peninsula. Dark iridescent blue above with rusty-orange underparts, rump, and face. Similar to migratory tytleri subspecies of Barn Swallow but lacks its dark blue collar and white tail patches. Like many other swallows, flies over a range of different habitats, from fields to forests; usually in hilly areas.
Spectacled Prickletail
Siptornis striaticollis
Small, brown bird of Andean cloud forest. Quite rare and apparently absent from many areas of seemingly appropriate forest. It has faint, pale streaking on the breast, a partial eye-ring, and a short white stripe behind the eye. Similar to Streaked Xenops, but bill is not upturned and lacks “whisker” stripes. Creeps along branches in middle levels of the forest, and often follows mixed-species flocks. Song is a quick series of high-pitched “tick” notes.
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