Sao Tome Scops-Owl

A small and nondescript flycatcher that is nowhere near as exciting-looking as the name suggests. Generally found in large bamboo thickets, but can also occur in other viney tangles in forest gaps and edges. Overall dingy olive upperparts and faintly streaked brownish underparts are fairly distinctive; most similar species in range are either yellower or grayer, not brownish. Most often found by its voice, a short series of hollow “pip” notes.

Distinctive small tyrannulet with rufous brow, black mask, olive back, and yellow underparts. Looks like a more colorful version of Rufous-browed Tyrannulet. Sexes similar. Found alone or in pairs, often in mixed-species flocks, in the canopy of forest. Occurs in humid forest and forest edges of montane regions. The typical voice has four high notes “teeup teeup teeup teeup.” No similar species in range. Endemic to the Coastal Cordillera of Venezuela.

Small, shy, and poorly understood, this reed warbler breeds in the remote marshlands of northeastern China and Russia and winters in drier, grassier habitats in Southeast Asia. Warm brown overall with a clean-cut whitish brow and throat; brow extends well behind the eye, unlike in Blunt-winged Warbler. Very similar to extralimital Paddyfield Warbler, but Paddyfield shows dark-tipped lower mandible, duller brown tones overall, and a dirtier brow stripe with a distinctive pinch just before the eye, after which it fades out; Manchurian’s brow broadens behind the eye instead. Oriental Reed Warbler much larger, with a weaker head pattern. Rambling jumbled song consists of high-pitched warbling notes and sharp clicks and rattles; more pleasant-sounding than that of Oriental Reed Warbler.