White-banded Tanager

This long-tailed game bird is native to Asia and has been introduced in many other parts of the world. Male has fleshy, red facial wattles, iridescent blue neck, and richly colored red and golden underparts with dark spots; his namesake white neck ring is indistinct on some birds. Female is buffy-brown, heavily marked with black, and usually shows some white markings around the eye. In much of its introduced range, including North America, there are no similar species. Elsewhere, note male’s blue neck and heavily spotted body, and female’s spotted or chevroned (not barred) underparts and mostly plain face lacking strong red markings. Found in farmland, scrub, and along the edge of forest, and often gives a loud, abrupt rasping call that draws attention to its presence. Japanese birds are now treated as a separate species, Green Pheasant.

A bulky, large-headed vanilla-and-brown shrike. Singles and small groups of up to 6 inhabit open broadleaf woodland and riverine woodland in arid savanna, where they prefer to perch conspicuously on taller trees that are adjacent to bare ground. They perch and watch for invertebrates, which they hawk off trunks or hunt on the ground, before returning to a sentinel perch. They may form the core of mixed-species flocks and have been recorded following hornbills and eating prey they disturb. They have many calls, the most characteristic of which is a distinctive, shrill plover-like “kleeew-keeuw.”

Small black-and-white woodpecker with round-headed, short-billed profile. Both sexes have a pale, lightly streaked belly and white bars on the back, but only the male has a tiny red fleck at the back of the eyebrow. Often forages on thin twigs and outreaching branches too slender for other woodpeckers, hanging upside down like a tit or nuthatch. Slightly larger Gray-capped Woodpecker is longer-billed, with a buffy belly and different head pattern. Gives extremely high, thin “tsi tsi tsi” calls and a single quick, echoing drum.