Streaked Rosefinch

Brown laughingthrush with a black brow and a bright silvery-azure panel on the wing. Wings, belly, and rump are more rufous-tinged than the rest of the body. Not as social as many other laughingthrushes; never found in large flocks, but rather in small groups, pairs, and even occasionally singly. Forages in tangled undergrowth and can be difficult to see; its high-pitched whistles occasionally give it away, but it can be rather quiet.

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.

Dull brown bulbul; paler below than above. Thin orangish eyering around the bright red eye is diagnostic, but not always easy to see. Very similar in appearance to slightly larger Red-eyed Bulbul, as well as to the red-eyed Bornean form of Cream-vented Bulbul; Spectacled is best separated by its combination of stronger contrast of the gray-washed head and breast with the rufous-brown wings and rump. Throat coloration of Spectacled is intermediate between the starkly pale throat of Cream-vented and the brown-suffused throat of Red-eyed, and its bill appears smaller and sharper than in the former two species. Song is a jumble of cricket-like chirping and harsh scratchy notes. Calls are a bright and bubbly series of notes--“pi-di-pi-pi-di-di”--sometimes with a descending meow at the end. Inhabits lowland and foothill forests, usually found in more mature growth than Cream-vented and Red-eyed Bulbuls.