Central Melanesian Cicadabird

This small warbler-like bird is unremarkable in appearance, but surely not the plainest of the white-eyes; look for a pale eye with a very narrow white eyering, grayish upperparts, and contrasting pale yellow throat. Endemic to the island of Yap, in the Western Caroline Islands of Micronesia, where it inhabits a wide range of forested and brushy habitats. The only other white-eye on the island, Yap White-eye, is dark olive-brown overall and has a much more prominent eyering. Forages actively in flocks. Gives high-pitched, scratchy trills and chirrups, comparable to parakeet and sparrow calls.

Active, social little bird of humid evergreen and pine-evergreen forest in foothills and highlands. Usually in small, twittering groups (at times up to 40 birds), moving at all levels through forest and edge, often at fruiting trees and bushes; commonly a core member of mixed-species feeding flocks. Rather drab but distinctive, with dull greenish upperparts, grayish to brownish head (varies regionally), and bold white patch behind the eye. Formerly known as Common Bush-Tanager.

Gangly wader with a long bicolored bill. Breeding plumage is dark brick-red below (male) or pale orangey (female); nonbreeding plumage is overall gray-brown with white belly; compare to Black-tailed Godwit. In flight shows rather plain upperwings with only a faint whitish wing stripe; white rump and finely barred tail. Mainly coastal away from tundra breeding grounds. Often in flocks feeding on mudflats and in brackish coastal lagoons, roosting in adjacent freshwater habitats. Feeds by probing its long bill into the mud.