Singing Cisticola

Streaky brown bird of open, treeless areas along the coastal plain and in adjacent hills. Range is mostly confined to Peru, but also reaches northern Chile. Thin bill helps separate it from finches; also note its yellow legs. No other pipit shares its coastal range. Spends most of the time on the ground, occasionally coming up to perch on a pole, fence, rock, etcetera. Song is a series of chips followed by a gravelly rasp.

Majestic and stately inhabitant of mature lowland and foothill forests. Pitch black with a white tail marked by a single dark bar. Enormous bill is bright orange with a prominent casque that is short and rectangular in females, long and upswept in males. Often seen in powerful flight over forests, typically in pairs or small groups. Gives low, resonant calls, usually in series: either a single-syllabled “rohh” or a disyllabic “roh-ow.”

A striking, little-known thrush with a largely jet black body except for a carmine red back, rump, and nape and a large white smudge on the cheeks.  Forages on the ground singly or in pairs inside lowland forest. Unmistakable in its restricted range on Peleng and Taliabu islands. Gives a typically complex song characteristic of thrushes, with fluty notes and whistles combined with burry phrases, repeated regularly. Call note is weak and barely audible: a very thin, high-pitched “seeep.”