Ruby-throated Myzomela

A distinctive plain, all-blue flycatcher-like bird with a light blue bill. Male is handsome, azure blue, often showing a slim dark breast band. Female and juvenile are duller, gray-blue, and lack a breast band. Singles and pairs are active birds, often found in mixed-species flocks in forest and forest edge in the lowlands and into the lower foothills. Restricted to Sulawesi and the Banggai and Sula Islands. Varied calls include a ringing, “way-way-way-way…”, a rapid, agitated-sounding, stuttering “wi-wi-wi-wi-wi-wi…”, and rasping calls.

Resembles Eurasian Nightjar, but larger with a rufous collar and upper breast and lacks the dark “forearms” seen on Eurasian Nightjar. Note the prominent pale tips on the wing coverts. Most active at dusk when hawks for flying insects. Voice is a distinctive repetitive “tuok-tuok-tuok” rising and falling in volume. Haunts sparsely to moderately vegetated open areas such as rocky hillsides, pinewoods, and semidesert in the breeding season and winters in similar habitats in West Africa.

Rare and elusive night-heron with a bug-eyed, almost “alien,” appearance. Highly localized, seldom encountered far from its nesting colonies and roost sites. Black above with gray streaking on the chest and a clean white-and-orange head pattern, though this can be hard to see in poor lighting. Forages quietly in well-shaded forest streams, but most reliably seen in its small breeding colonies, usually hidden deep in a stand of bamboo or evergreen trees.