Grande Comore Flycatcher

An overall sooty-colored cuckooshrike with broad white tips to the tail feathers. Male is dark sooty-gray with a slaty sheen, slightly paler on rump. Underparts paler toward tail; wings black. Female is very similar to male, but paler in general, often weakly barred with dark and pale gray on underparts. Male has a black mask, while female has dark lores and a faint eyering. Juvenile is blackish-brown above and brownish-gray below, heavily scaled whitish all over, with broad white tips on wing feathers. Immature like female, but more strongly and extensively barred below. Song is a loud series of whistles “pe-pe-pe-peew-peew-pew”; sometimes the starting notes are skipped. Found in all types of woodlands, including broad-leaved forests, sometimes even near cultivation during non-breeding season.

Large, crow-sized bird, gray or black, with large black bill and yellow eye. In flight, white undertail, tail tip, and primary bases distinctive; some subspecies of Pied Currawong very similar, but Gray has narrow pale trailing edge to wing in all plumages. Black Currawong has thicker bill and dark undertail. Loud ringing, clinking song, reminiscent of some lyrebird sounds.

Small, mouse-like bird found in cloud forest understory in Colombia’s Santa Marta Mountains. Adult male is gray with a white crown patch and rusty barring on the lower underparts. Female is washed with brown, and young birds have a lot of scaling and barring. The only other tapaculo in the Santa Martas is Brown-rumped Tapaculo, which lacks white in the crown, occurs at higher elevations, and has a different voice. Typical song is a very fast trill that lasts for at least ten seconds and may continue for a minute or more.