Levaillant's Woodpecker

Tiny, short-tailed, bright green parrot. Both sexes show red bill and red rump, while male also possesses a scarlet crown. Typically found in ones or twos in the canopy of forests in the Wet Zone, but also wooded areas outside of that zone. Confined to Sri Lanka, where the extremely small size and short tail make it easily identified from all other parrots on the island. Often given flight call is a metallic “zit-zit-zit”. Can also be given singly, as a drawn out “zeeet”.

Rusty edges to feathers and pale eyebrow in winter contrast with blackish feather bases. Breeding males are glossy black. Shorter tail than Common Grackle. Thinner bill than Red-winged Blackbird. Found in wooded swamps. Often in flocks; frequently mixes with Red-winged Blackbirds and Common Grackle in winter. Look for flocks perched at tops of trees bordering marshes and listen for their calls to help pick them out from large flocks of blackbirds.

Large, stout-billed woodcreeper of tall rainforest in northeastern Amazonia. Plumage entirely rufous-brown with no barring or streaking; note thick reddish bill, white throat, and prominent white whisker mark (bill of young birds is dark brown). Found in tall rainforest as well as slightly lower-stature forests on sandy soils; generally less common than other large woodcreepers. Climbs along tree trunks and large branches at middle and upper levels, probing bark crevices for insects and small vertebrates; occasionally follows army ant swarms to capture animals fleeing up tree trunks. Heard more often than seen. Song, given mainly at dawn, is a far-carrying, hoarse whistle repeated 3–4 times, very unlike other woodcreepers. Amazonian Barred-Woodcreeper, which also has a reddish bill and suggestion of a pale whisker, may occur with Red-billed at ant swarms and be mistaken for it in dim understory light; note Red-billed’s stouter bill and plain face with obvious whisker streak.