White-browed Shrike-Babbler

Small, beautiful, pale-gray plover. Adults show a diagnostic chestnut band across the chest. Immatures are very plain but show a gray chest band. Found mainly on manmade saltpans and natural alkaline lakes, both along the coast and inland. Sometimes occurs in other coastal wetlands but virtually never on fresh water. Call is a quiet “peep”. Immatures can be confused with immature White-fronted Plover but normally show a blurry gray chest band and are colder gray on the back.

Loud but sluggish and difficult-to-see canopy inhabitant of the Annamite highlands in western Vietnam, eastern Laos, and far eastern Cambodia. Green with an electric-blue face, pale yellow crown and throat, and thick black eyebrows. Also note heavy dark bill with long bristles at the base. More often heard than seen; listen for its long, unending series of hollow-sounding notes. Like many other barbets, it can be difficult to locate when singing; more readily seen at fruiting trees. Formerly considered a subspecies of Black-browed Barbet.

Small shearwater of the tropical Indian and Pacific Oceans, where it breeds on barren and rocky atolls and islets, venturing offshore to feed. Dark blackish brown above and white below; this combination of pattern and size distinctive within range. Similar to Sargasso Shearwater of the Atlantic, which has more extensive white on the face, and somewhat similar to larger Manx Shearwater and smaller Little Shearwater, but Tropical has mottled dark undertail coverts (white in Manx and Little).