Pygmy Batis

This small duck has a solidly chocolate-brown ‘skull cap’, white cheeks, and a distinctive pink-red bill with a dark saddle. In flight, the buff flight feathers with a black stripe are distinctive on otherwise all-brown wings. It prefers foraging on open fresh water, with seeds and plant matter forming the majority of its diet. The similar Blue-billed Teal differs from Red-billed Duck by being smaller and having a silvery-blue bill and dark smudges on the cheeks. Cape Teal and Bernier’s Teal (the latter endemic to Madagascar) both lack the strongly contrasting face pattern of Red-billed Duck.

A distinctive mostly unmarked, brownish-red piculet with black crown spotted white or yellow and creamy forehead. Unique in range, where the only mostly brown piculet. Uncommon to fairly common in dry areas with scrub, forest, and mangrove edges; also locally in humid forest borders. Found singly, in pairs, or small groups foraging in vine tangles in understory. Voice is a high-pitched trill “i’i’i’i’i’i’i’i’i’i’i’i’I” and a series of 3-6 high-pitched whistled notes.

A large brown babbler of scrubby edges, second growth, and open forest in hilly and montane habitats. Usually in pairs when breeding, but sometimes in larger groups in the winter. Gray-brown from the crown down to the tail, orange on the face, sides, and undertail, and white on the throat, breast, and belly. Lacks strong streaking or spotting. Like other scimitar-babblers, frequently duets, giving far-carrying hooting choruses together. Also gives rolling chattering series typical of the genus. Red-eyed Scimitar-Babbler of Myanmar and northwest Thailand was formerly treated as part of this species; Rusty-cheeked is restricted to the Himalayas.