Sahel Bush Sparrow

Snappy-looking pitta with a broad egg-yolk-yellow eyebrow, black mask, coffee-brown back, and finely barred underparts. Male has a yellow throat, black crown, and indigo belly patch. Female is similar but duller, with no indigo belly patch, a whitish throat, paler underparts, and a pale brown crown. Listen for its song, a series of well-spaced explosive but mellow “byow!”s. Widely distributed but uncommon to locally common; inhabits hill and lowland dipterocarp forests, where it seems to favor dry ridges, hilltops, and limestone areas.

Long-tailed parakeet with a dark brown head, pale cheeks, and a scalloped breast. Note the lack of red on the shoulders and the blue forehead. Found in humid forests, where most often encountered in groups flying noisily through the subcanopy or feeding quietly. Often seen at clay licks.

A medium-sized olive-gray honeyeater with a pale yellow cheek patch and a relatively stout bill. Cheek patch is often a crescent compared to the circular patch on Graceful Honeyeater and the oval path on Yellow-spotted Honeyeater. Adults have a bluish eye, while the similar Graceful Honeyeater has a blue-gray eye and Yellow-spotted Honeyeater has a brown eye. Listen for the rapid staccato machine-gun call of Lewin’s compared to the loud repeated whistles of the Yellow-spotted Honeyeater and the more simple, single note call of Graceful Honeyeater. Of the three easily confusable species, this is the only one found away from the tropics; it occurs in wetter forests and gardens all along the eastern coast of Australia.