Kauai Elepaio

Large, chunky hawk of coastal forests, especially mangroves. Adult is mostly dark gray and rusty and is unmistakable in coastal habitat. Brown-and-white immature closely resembles immature Great Black Hawk but has more mottled and less clean-cut appearance. Sits on low perches and pounces on crabs. Tends to be conspicuous and often confiding, allowing close approach.

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”.

This spectacular hummingbird was only discovered in 2017, and made headlines when it was described as a new species to science a year later. It is currently known only from one mountain in the Andes of southwestern Ecuador called Cerro de Arcos. Male’s entirely blue throat separates it from the otherwise similar Ecuadorian Hillstar, which does not overlap in range. Female is much duller than male, with greenish upperparts, brownish belly, and green speckles on the throat. Found in paramo at very high elevations, where it feeds on Chuquiraga flowers, which are orange and shaped like tiny pine cones.