The Whiskered Treeswift

The whiskered treeswift (Hemiprocne comata) is a species of bird in the family Hemiprocnidae. It is found in Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Myanmar, Philippines, and Thailand. The adult male has dark bronze-brown body with white belly, flanks and undertail-coverts, long wings and deep blue forked tail, and tertial flight feathers are white. In addition the underwing shows blue coverts and white tertial flight feathers. The head is blue to glossy black, and slightly crested. Moreover two conspicuous white parallel stripes formed by bold supercilium from forehead to hind nape, and a second stripe from chin back to neck side. Therefore, female bird is much like same but she has deep blue-green ear-coverts. Thus, juvenile has finely barred brown, grey and white plumage. The Whiskered Treeswift feeds mainly on insects and small flying arthropods. 

These species natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests, subtropical or tropical mangrove forests, and subtropical or tropical moist montane forests. The Whiskered Treeswift is a forest-living bird which frequents small cover breaks such as tracks or streams. The bird follows the vegetation up around the highest emergent crowns in evergreen forest and locally in tall mangroves. This species occurs from plains up to 1000 to 1100 metres on slopes, but it is often seen below 800 metres in N Malay Peninsula. The whiskered treeswift has a very large range, and hence does not reach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the range size criterion, with a declining or fluctuating range size, habitat extent, quality, or population size and a small number of locations or severe fragmentation. In spite of the fact that the population trend appears to be declining, the decline is not believed to be adequately rapid to approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the population trend criterion. The Whiskered Treeswift is quieter than the largest species of this family. Hence, the contact call between pair-members includes high-pitched “chew” or “kweeo”, and series of short notes “kwee kwee, kwi-kwi-kwi-kwi” or “she-she-she-SHEW-she”. The bird calls are uttered while the birds are flying or perched.

The Whiskered Treeswift feeds mainly on insects, hunts from perches where it sits in upright posture, and from where it can have a good all-round vision of the surroundings. The bird is very nimble in flight; it chases insects and small flying arthropods, even amongst the foliage but well below the canopy. The preys are habitually taken on the wing, but it also picks off the food items when perched, or by hanging from the tip of a small branch. Thus, it may perform short sallies from its perch, close to the surface of the vegetation.

The courtship displays are poorly identified, but noisy soaring has been observed at least for the largest species. The breeding season occurs between February and August. The breeding pair is territorial during the breeding season, remains in its nesting territory all year round. The Whiskered Treeswift is very alert and manoeuvrable in flight. The narrow, curved wings and the long tail streamers are very typical of fast fliers.


The species nest is naturally situated between 8 and 40 metres above the ground, on the upper surface of thin branch, and looks like a part of this branch. Both male and female build the nest, small half-saucer. The rim is made with saliva into which feathers are embedded, and few twigs too. So, supplies can be added during the incubation. The bird usually builds very small nest, shallow structure letting only a single egg, standing right as in an egg-cup. The thin papery walls are unable to support an adult or a large chick. That causes incubating adult squats on the branch in its place on the nest itself.

Only the belly touches the egg. The female lays a single white egg, and both adults incubate and rear the chick. The incubation lasts about three weeks, but the chick leaves the nest very soon, within one week after hatching. The chick is fed by regurgitation from adult’s throat into the open mouth, but later, the young takes the food from the parent’s mouth. The juvenile plumage is cryptic for better camouflage, required most likely 50 days for complete development.

The Orange-Breasted Bunting

The colorful orange-breasted bunting “Passerina leclancherii” is a species of bunting belongs to family Cardinalidae. The orange breasted bunting endemic to Mexico, where its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical dry forests and subtropical or tropical dry shrubland. The Orange-breasted Bunting ranges along the Pacific slope from extreme southern Nayarit south to western Chiapas, and inland to western Puebla. It is more abundant in second growth than in undisturbed forest. It is found from sea level up to about 1200 m in arid habitats, including thorn forest, open woodland, and the edges of roadsides and agricultural clearings.

The species was introduced to Oahu in 1941 but did not persist, and was extirpated by 1952. This species has a very large range, and hence does not approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the range size criterion. The bird’s population trend appears to be stable, and hence the species is evaluated as Least Concern. This species has a sweet, lilting song that you might enjoy. Not surprisingly, they are popular in the cage bird trade is a bit smaller length 12.5 cm and shorter-billed than Rose-bellied Bunting (Passerina rositae), with which it may occur, and both sexes of Orange-breasted are yellow below.

Orange-breasted bunting is also known as the orange-bellied bunting or as Leclancher's bunting, seemingly glow-in-the-dark passerine resides in dry forests and shrubland in the tropics and subtropics. The adult birds are blue above with a mossy green crown and mantle, and are yellow below with an orange wash across the breast. Hence, Females birds are immatures and entirely green above, with yellow lores, throat, and underparts are yellow, shaded with gray along the sides and chest. The birds feed on seeds in the winter and insects in the summer, and have correspondingly smaller bills than most cardinalids. The cardinalids are also known for being dimorphic, and the males often have dramatic, brilliant coloring although the females are very beautiful as well. This is migratory bird, breeding in North America and wintering in Central and South America.

The Green-and-black Fruiteater (Pipreola riefferii)

The green-and-black fruiteater is also called “Pipreola riefferii” is a species of bird in the family Cotingidae. Cotingas have broad bills with hooked tips, rounded wings, and strong legs. The green & black fruiteater can found in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela. The bird species is native to the lower and mid-level mountain forests on the eastern side of the Andes in South America. Its range extends from southern Venezuela to northern Peru and its altitudinal range is between 1,500 and 2,700 m above sea level. This species is more often seen in small flocks than some other fruiteater. As suggested by this species' name, these birds mostly eat fruit or insects. They usually construct cup shape nests, while males will mate with several females. Hence, the females alone care for the eggs and young one.

The green-and-black fruiteater is a plump, stocky bird with a length of about 18 cm only. The adult male bird has a black head, throat and chest glossed with green and mid-green upper parts, with pale tips to the tertial feathers of the wings. There is a yellow rim to the dark chest and the underparts are otherwise yellowish, usually mottled or streaked with green. However, female bird is alike to the male apart from the replacement of the black areas by green, and the absence of the yellow necklace. In both sexes, the iris of the eye is reddish-brown, and the legs and bill are orangish-red. The bird song is a high-pitched "ts-s-s-s-s-s-s" lasting only few seconds, slowing and sometimes fading as it winds down. However, somewhat rare the Green-and-black Fruiteater has a very wide range. The bird range and population size this species is not classified as vulnerable. The bird population size has not been quantified but seems stable and the International Union for Conservation of Nature has assessed the conservation status of the bird as being of "least concern".

The Schlegel's Asity (Philepitta schlegeli)

The Schlegel's Asity (Philepitta schlegeli) Male, Plumage can found in Madagascar. This fantastic bird is a species of bird belongs to Philepittidae family. It is endemic to Madagascar, and its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical dry forests and subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests. It is threatened by habitat loss. The Schlegel’s Asity is 12·5 to 14 cm, small bird, rotund, short-tailed, with short bill and legs. Adult male breeding has head mostly black, brilliant apple-green wattle. The species is perhaps polygynous, with dispersed male leks. Its nest is globular in shape and suspended from a low branch of an understory tree. It is constructed from moss, bark and leaf strips, held together with spiders' webs. Laying dates are probably at least between October and December. The male is very distinctive, but the female can be distinguished from the Velvet Asity by the pale fleshy eye-ring, and the yellow-tinged underparts. Thus, hints Often feeds from flowering trees in the canopy of western deciduous forest, or on fruits in the understory.

This species has elaborate secondary sexual characters. Adult breeding males of the Schlegel’s Asity have supraorbital caruncles, which are feather less, fleshy excrescences of the dermis above the eye. These caruncles are pearly light green below and in front of the eyes, blue above the eyes, and turquoise behind the eyes. The voice of Male bird song is a quiet but penetrating whistle of c. 7–9 notes, rising and then falling. The bird likes largely frugivorous, especially in rainy season; fruits include those of Cabucala (Apocynaceae). The population size of this species has not been quantified, but it is described as rather scarce. All forest habitats in Madagascar are under intense human pressure. Because dry forests within this species’ range are threatened by burning and cattle-grazing as well as by the extraction of wood for fuel and construction.

The Andean Cock-of-the-Rock

The amazingly bizarre Andean Cock-of-the-rock is maybe the most widely recognized bird of the cloud forests of the Andes Mountains. The Andean cock-of-the-rock (Rupicola peruvianus), also known as tunki (Quechua), is a large passerine bird of the cotinga family native to Andean cloud forests in South America can be found in cloud forests in the Andes Mountains in Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia mostly in ravines and forested streams in montane areas at 500 to 2,400 m elevation. It is national bird of Peru, is readily identified by its fan-shaped crest and brilliant orange plumage, neck, breast, and shoulders and has a black body, gray wings, and a large disk-shaped crest of feathers that extends over its bill. The female is a brownish-orange over her whole body and has a smaller crest and both of evident to a lesser degree even in the duller female.

It is a medium-sized perching bird around 12 inches in length and weighing around 265 grams. The male bird spend much of their time displaying at leks, (A lek is an area where animals, usually birds, gather to perform courtship displays) where they jump up and down on particular branches and utter low, guttural croaks. At the lek, males have been observed to break up into pairs, performing “confrontation displays”. This consists of facing each other while bowing, jumping, and flapping their wings, sometimes even snapping their bills, and at the same time giving off various squawking and grunting calls. When the female approaches, it becomes even more intense.  The bird name is derived from their preference for rocks and ledges as substrates for their mud cup nests. Often difficult to detect away from leks, birds can sometimes be found feeding at fruiting trees eats a diet of fruit and berries, supplemented by insects, amphibians, reptiles, and smaller mice.

The Andean cock-of-the-rock is found in humid, rocky forested areas and is often found in ravines near water or by forest streams. It is usually found at elevations of 1,500-8,900 feet. A cloud forest is a tropical or subtropical forest that is usually covered by clouds or fog at the canopy level. The bird is one of many birds species to exhibit marked sexual dimorphism. The female builds a nest of mud plastered to cave entrances or rocky outcrops in forest ravines.  She normally lays 2 eggs and incubates them for around 28 days. She cares for the chicks by herself. The male birds appear to take three years to attain the adult plumage; however few birds start to show up at displaying leks during this stage of their lives as subordinate males. Once the orange feathers begin to appear, it seems the birds continue a progressive molt until the time they reach the adult plumage by the third year of life. Andean cocks-of-the-rock face slightly greater predators than smaller songbirds. The Predators are attracted to leks by the conspicuous behavior of the displaying males. The animals prey on adult cocks-of-the-rock including hawk-eagles, hawks, forest-falcons, jaguar, mountain lion, ocelot and the boa constrictor.

It is generally shy and inconspicuous, often seen only briefly after being flushed out or while swiftly flying down a valley. Andean cock-of-the-rock males gather in groups in a lek in the forest. The males try to attract females with a call that sounds bob up and down, bow, and hop around to display their bright plumage. The male bird is habitually mate with more than one female. This species has a very large range, and hence does not approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the range size criterion; hence for these reasons the species is evaluated as Least Concern. The Guianan Cock-of-the-Rock is alike species but has a more orange plumage and lacks the extent of black feathers on its wings. Source: Charismatic Planet