Golden-olive Woodpecker

A beautiful and colorful grosbeak-like bird with slate gray upperparts, black mask and bill, immaculate white eyebrow and throat, and rich salmon-buff underparts. Sexes similar. Fairly common, in pairs or small groups foraging for fruits and flowers, as well as insects. Mostly in dry regions with bushes and scattered trees, gallery forest edges and savanna. Loud and melodic song with three variants, often given in duet. Found only in Colombia and Venezuela.

Rather large hummingbird of humid evergreen and pine-oak forest in mountains. Fairly common, but typically inconspicuous in shady understory and at edges, where feeds at all levels on flowers. Despite the exciting name, often looks rather drab and grayish overall with a dark mask, whitish eyestripe, and dusky throat (amethyst gorget rarely catches the light). Note the blackish tail with small, pale gray corners.

A nocturnal inhabitant of open arid woodlands and thornscrub. Perches on ground from which it makes floppy and erratic flight upon its long wings in pursuit of insects. During the day it nestles in shaded leaf litter, wherein its cryptic coloration hides it well. Both the Hispaniolan Nightjar and Chuck-wills-widow are considerably larger, darker, and lack the Least Pauraque’s white terminal tail band. Calls include a low scratchy “wuck-wuck-wuck-wuck,” a low-pitched rising and trilled “tooooooeeeeeee,” and a similarly low-pitched trilled “oo-weee-oo,” with emphasis on middle syllable. The calls of the Hispaniolan Nightjar is a lower pitched “toooooeeeeeo.”