Sumba Boobook

A fairly small bird of lowland and foothill forest and edge, with a rufous crown and a gray back and cheek, all with whitish streaks. Also has dark wings and tail with white outer tail feathers, and off-white underparts blending to a pale orange throat. Note the slender black bill. Often joins mixed-species flocks and sometimes hangs upside down while feeding. Somewhat similar to Brown Tit-Babbler, but slightly larger, with a rufous crown and a white belly. Flocks give a jumble of squeaky chattering notes.

A typical tapaculo, in bad light a plain and dark small bird with short tail. In good view, mostly plain dark gray with brown and slightly barred belly. Female more barred than male, and juvenile mostly brown and markedly barred. Acts like a mouse, staying near the ground in dense understory of bamboo thickets in cloud forest. Song nasal and noisy, one of the signature sounds in the mountains near Caracas; one version a series of four notes “wu-E-e-wu” and the another a faster series of 6 notes “wu-wU-e-e-wu-wu”; varied calls, the most common a descending mechanical rattle. The only tapaculo in its limited range in the Coastal Cordillera of Venezuela.

Fairly small, slim, long-tailed hornbill. Note the red bill, dark eye, pale face, and heavily spotted back. White patches on the wing and outer tail are conspicuous in flight. Found in arid savanna, often in lusher woodland along dry riverbeds. Call is a series of clucks that starts with single notes, then becomes louder and more emphatic, with doubled notes. Has a small area of overlap with the very similar Southern Red-billed Hornbill in northern Namibia. Separated by the unstreaked white face and dark eye, though beware of hybrids. Somewhat like Monteiro’s Hornbill, but smaller and slimmer-billed, with bolder white spotting on the back.