Sikkim Treecreeper

As the name suggests, a large rosefinch. Male is bright pink with a dark face and frosty specks on the underparts. Female is streaky brown all over. Very similar to Streaked Rosefinch; look out for unstreaked upperparts in the male and softer, larger white spots on the underparts. Prefers more sparsely vegetated areas at higher elevations than Streaked Rosefinch, favoring alpine and subalpine scree slopes, boulder fields, and other open and barren environments; descends into similar habitat in the winter. Gives various chips, cheeps, and wheezy notes.

A forest skulker with clean-cut pale underparts, a gray wash on the side of the breast and face, and rusty brown upperparts and central crown. The tail has distinctive white tips to the outer feathers. Juvenile is heavily spotted above. A shy and inconspicuous resident in the dense understory of lowland and mid-altitude forest up to 1500 meters, found singly and in pairs; several individuals may follow ant swarms, where they lose their fear of humans. Sings a loud musical 3–4 note “whooo-wheet-whooee” and similar melodic notes; also gives harsh “chht” calls.   

Small finchlike bird, actually more closely related to tanagers. Male is uniform slaty gray overall with no contrasting plumage features. Female is paler grayish with some buffy tones on face and blurry streaking on breast. Best feature on both sexes is bill: fairly long and very pointy. A nomadic bamboo specialist, difficult to reliably locate because populations move around to follow seeding Chusquea bamboo. Usually seen singly or in pairs; typically stays on or near the ground. Listen for stuttering high-pitched song.