Sulphur-throated Finch

Burly gray cuckooshrike with dark eyes and a heavy bill. Endemic to the southern and east-central Philippines, from Bohol east to Samar, and south to Mindanao and Basilan. Both male and female are gray above and barred black-and-white below. Inhabits lowland and foothill forest and forest edge, where forages at middle and upper levels, sometimes associating with other species. Gives a range of high-pitched and scratchy calls, including doubled screeching notes: “whee-wheet!” Formerly treated as part of a more broadly-defined “Bar-bellied Cuckooshrike”.

A fairly large, short-tailed bird of mid-mountane forest canopy in the Foja Mountains. Male is mainly black with white flanks, bronzy-scaled chest and 6 antennalike feathers projecting from the back of the head. Note the blue eye. The female is dull brown above with rufous in the wing, strongly-barred underparts and pale bands above and below the eye. The male dances at a terrestrial display court. There are no other similar birds-of-paradise that co-occur. Vocalizations include loud rasps, rattles or a single or double-note squeak “wi-dik!”.

A handsome little bird with a stain the color of dried blood on its throat and lores. Bright yellow overall with black-and-silver eye rings and wingbars. Like most other shrike-babblers, tends to be rather slow and not particularly acrobatic, often trailing along on the edges of mixed flocks in hilly and submontane broadleaf forests. Gleans insects from foliage with a finely-hooked silvery bill. Gives a strong, insistent, and repetitive “wiCHE, wiCHE, wiCHE, wiCHE.”