Brown-tailed Chat

A large, spectacular, slender, carmine-pink-and-teal-blue bee-eater with a long pointed tail, black bill, and black facial mask. The immature is duller and shorter-tailed. It gathers in large groups that often attend bush fires, and it specializes in catching large flying insects, including dragonflies, butterflies, and locusts. Breeds colonially by burrowing into sandbanks. It has a complex three-stage migration; it generally breeds between 13–20°S from August–September, disperses south of the breeding area December–March, and then moves north of the breeding area April–August. “Trik-trik-trik” calls are more guttural than those of European Bee-eater. Similar Northern Carmine Bee-eater has a teal-colored (not carmine) chin and throat.

A small, pretty member of the pipit family. Note the yellow underparts, the breast band of black streaks, and the scaly brown upperparts. Males and females are similar, but females are duller. The white edges of the tail are conspicuous in weak, fluttering flight. Found on the ground in montane grassland, often in wet areas. Similar to Yellow-throated Longclaw, but there is little overlap in range, and Sharpe’s is separated by being much smaller and having a streaky rather than solid black breast band. Brownish immatures can be confused with pipits, but show some pale yellow below. The song is a series of musical whistles in an up-and-down pattern, given from a perch or in flight. The calls include a sharp “siit” and a longer, metallic “chweee.” 

Utterly unmistakable inhabitant of waterside and riverine lowland evergreen forests, mangroves, and plantations. Midnight black with long white slashes on each wing, wine-red underparts, and a black chinstrap. Bulbous bill is glowingly powder-blue with warm tinges of orange and greenish-yellow. During the breeding season, the pendulous nests of this species can be quite obvious, hanging over forested waterways. Voice is nasal and generally unpleasant-sounding, consisting of odd low mechanical rasps.