Chestnut-bellied Monarch

A striking, little-known thrush with a largely jet black body except for a carmine red back, rump, and nape and a large white smudge on the cheeks.  Forages on the ground singly or in pairs inside lowland forest. Unmistakable in its restricted range on Peleng and Taliabu islands. Gives a typically complex song characteristic of thrushes, with fluty notes and whistles combined with burry phrases, repeated regularly. Call note is weak and barely audible: a very thin, high-pitched “seeep.”

An eye-catching waterbird found on lakes and ponds with extensive floating vegetation. Long-tailed breeding adults are striking: the large white wing patch and head contrast sharply with its black body and bright yellow neck patch. Short-tailed wintering adults and juveniles have a brown back, white underparts, and a toned-down version of the breeder's head pattern. Vocalizations include a variety of nasal clucking and purring calls; song, seldom heard, a repeated, ringing “ku-woo.”

Dull brown bulbul; paler below than above. Thin orangish eyering around the bright red eye is diagnostic, but not always easy to see. Very similar in appearance to slightly larger Red-eyed Bulbul, as well as to the red-eyed Bornean form of Cream-vented Bulbul; Spectacled is best separated by its combination of stronger contrast of the gray-washed head and breast with the rufous-brown wings and rump. Throat coloration of Spectacled is intermediate between the starkly pale throat of Cream-vented and the brown-suffused throat of Red-eyed, and its bill appears smaller and sharper than in the former two species. Song is a jumble of cricket-like chirping and harsh scratchy notes. Calls are a bright and bubbly series of notes--“pi-di-pi-pi-di-di”--sometimes with a descending meow at the end. Inhabits lowland and foothill forests, usually found in more mature growth than Cream-vented and Red-eyed Bulbuls.