Wallacean Whistler

This creamy, partridge-like beauty is the only tragopan in its range and the world’s only pale-bellied tragopan. A thickset bird, usually encountered foraging in pairs in mid-altitude hill forest. Male is pale below and intricately spotted above, with pale polka dots on a black-and-chestnut background; has a similarly black-and-chestnut head with bright orange facial skin. Female is dark gray-brown with a slightly paler face and belly; wings and belly streaked paler. During courtship, male drums wings loudly and gives a bizarre, scarily infant-like waaah! followed by loud grunting notes.

Attractive ant-following antbird of mature rainforest. It is an obligate ant-follower, and is usually found in pairs or family groups around army ant swarms. The two sexes are uniquely distinctive: males are gray with a white eyebrow and throat and fine white tail barring; females are rusty orange with faint black patterning and fine black tail barring. While it follows army ant swarms through a variety of mature and secondary rainforest habitats, its territories are usually centered around areas of dense undergrowth within mature rainforest, like in upland ravines and around tree fall gaps. Its song is a distinctive slow, descending series of wheezy whistled notes.

Small, plump, pale plover; the color of dry sand. In breeding plumage look for thin broken black collar across chest, black stripe across forehead, orange legs, and orange bill with black tip. Nonbreeding and immature birds have black bills and sandy-colored breastbands. White wingstripe visible in flight. Notably paler than other small plovers, with the exception of Snowy, from which Piping is distinguished by thicker bill and orange legs. Sometimes seen near other shorebirds, but rarely ventures far from the high, dry side of the beach. Often quite vocal; gives a sad-sounding two-parted whistle that drops in pitch: "pwee-doo." A species of great conservation concern, due to coastal development and disturbance at nesting sites on beaches.