Olive Honeyeater

A small barbet of dense, broad-leaved forests in lowland and foothill regions. Adult is bright green with a blue face patterned with a complex mosaic of black, red, orange, and yellow. Juvenile is green with a powder-blue face and no dark markings. Like most other barbets, tends to stick to dense canopy and is seldom seen, but its far-carrying song is often heard: a long steady series of single or doubled chirping notes that somewhat resemble a frog’s. Also gives a series of rising peeps: “weet, weet, weet.” Overlaps with Blue-eared Barbet (with which it is treated as one species by some taxonomies) in far southern Thailand and northern Malaysia.

Long known to ornithologists as something different (and informally called “Millpo Tapaculo”), this bird was finally described as a new species in 2020. It inhabits grassy, rock-strewn areas above tree line at high elevations in the eastern Andes of central Peru. Plumage is mainly gray with tan rear parts that are faintly barred, and it sometimes shows a faint, whitish eyebrow; female is browner than male. Similar in appearance to several other tapaculos, and best identified by range and voice. Song, often given from atop a rock, is a seemingly endless series of raspy chip notes.

Attractive accipiter of wooded habitats. Adult gray above with orange-suffused white underparts; also note bright yellow cere (skin around the nostrils). In flight, solid black wingtips stand out against otherwise pale underparts, diagnostic for this species. Juveniles dark brown above and streaky below, similar to Japanese Sparrowhawk, but underwing coverts unmarked or very lightly marked instead of heavily marked as in Japanese.