Splendid Sunbird

Handsome, chunky finch of humid evergreen and pine-evergreen forest in foothills and highlands. Usually in pairs or small groups, feeding on fruit in canopy or seen in flight high overhead, when best detected and identified by call. Note the stout, pale greenish-yellow bill and contrasting black wings with a big white to pale gray panel. Male has black hood and yellow body. Female has black cap and dingy pale underparts.

A large stork with a completely bare head and neck ideal for its scavenging habits. The adult’s face is red and the neck is yellow while the juvenile has a brownish head and a white, thinly-feathered neck. The upperparts are all dark while the underparts are mostly white. In flight, note the broad wings with distinctive white “armpits” and tucked in neck. Similar to the larger Greater Adjutant; Lesser has a more slender bill, has all-dark upperwings, and often adopts a more upright, less “hunched” posture. Often found in shallow marshes, fields, and swamps.

An elegant, long-tailed pheasant with burnished coppery-brown feathers. Rather secretive; occurs mostly in dense cedar and cypress forests near streams. Male has bright red patch of skin around the eye and long banded tail. Female resembles Japanese subspecies of Ring-necked Pheasant but is reddish, with shorter tail, conspicuous white fringing on breast feathers, and less uniform plumage patterns generally. Gives indistinctive, low “ku-ku” calls while foraging. Male makes deep drumming sounds in breeding season during late winter and early spring.