Black-headed Cuckooshrike

An odd-looking babbler which looks and behaves like a prinia on steroids. Brown above and white below with rufous wingtips. Red eyering is unique. Scrambles about in reedbeds, scrub, field edges, and grassy meadows in small flocks and pairs. Scales stems like a parrotbill and hangs acrobatically like a tit or leaf warbler. Strident, melodic song has a somewhat hoarse, nasal quality. Calls include repeated descending whistles, energetic chattering, and dry chittering.

Fairly large trogon of pine and pine-oak forests in highlands; usually at upper levels in trees and often rather shy. Male is striking, with big, bold white squares on underside of tail. Female has broken white eyering on brown head and coarse black-and-white pattern under the tail. Elegant Trogon overlaps in range and can be told from Mountain by the coppery color on the top of the tail (male) or by the white stripe behind the eye (female). Also note the finely patterned tail on both male and female Elegant Trogons. The similar but smaller Collared Trogon is found mainly at lower elevation and has much finer barring on the underside of the tail.

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.