Boa Nova Tapaculo

Uncommon, petite plover of beaches, coastal lagoons, lakeshores, gravel bars, and sandbars along rivers. Note slender black bill, brightly patterned head, narrow black breast band, and long pinkish legs. Despite the name, does not have white collar around back of neck like most small plovers. Typically found in pairs or as single birds; not in flocks like many other small plovers. At high tide they often roost with other plovers such as Wilson’s and Semipalmated plovers.

Brown-and-buff nightbird found in arid scrub and deserts in western Ecuador and northwestern Peru.  It is dark brown, heavily mottled with buff, and has a white throat. In flight, it has white crescents near the wingtips and white stripes along the outer tail feathers. Similar to Common Pauraque, but smaller, with a shorter tail and a different voice. Compared to Tschudi's Nightjar, with which it overlaps in northwestern Peru, Scrub is much darker and has a different song. Scrub Nightjar typically gives a clear, whistled, incessantly repeated “tWEE-oh,” more emphatic and not as burry as Common Pauraque.

Uncommon throughout most of its range, this elusive rock thrush breeds in rocky hill forest in northeastern China and Russia and migrates down the East Asian coast to winter in southern China and mainland Southeast Asia. Beautiful and distinctive male has a blue crown, orange underparts, and black wings marked with a bright white patch; small white patch on throat is not obvious and difficult to see. Female is brown with scaly markings on her back and breast; she lacks a pale crescent behind the eye. Usually stays low in shrubbery, but male will sing from an exposed perch.