Hawaii Akepa

Long tailed and rather plain parakeet endemic to Colombia’s Santa Marta Mountains. The thick, white eye ring and red blotches on face and breast are its best features. Blue and red in wings is mostly concealed with the bird is perched. Typically encountered in small flocks that fly from tree to tree in the cloud forest, screeching loudly. Regularly seen along the San Lorenzo Ridge in El Dorado Nature Reserve, where nest boxes have been placed to improve its breeding success. Also nests and roosts in dead palm trees.

A large gray cuckooshrike with a strong, hooked bill. Upperparts are mostly gray with black primaries; male darker than female. Rump and upper tail are paler than back, which is apparent in flight. Male has gray throat and upper breast becoming paler on the belly. Female generally has paler underparts with faint gray bars except from the lower belly to the tail. Both sexes have a dark patch from the bill to slightly behind the eye, giving a masked impression. Juvenile is brownish, heavily scaled with whitish-buff, and mottled on the underparts. Immature has broader white edges to wing feathers. Vocal. Call is a two-noted, rather nasal “gii-yaak,” uttered in flight as well as from a perch. Inhabits lightly wooded country, avoiding wet forests.

A plain clay-brown laughingthrush with a long, curved yellow bill. Largely without distinguishing plumage features, but note weak white brow, blue-gray tinge to the wings, and small black patches on the “elbow” and face. The only laughingthrush in much of its range. Forages in hilly and montane regions, where it often moves about noisily in medium-sized flocks in scrubby, brushy habitat, often near waterways. Long rambling song melodious and thrush-like; calls include fluid whistles, nasal chattering, and quiet peeping.