Worstbird

Medium-sized hummingbird, mostly dark green with obvious buffy underwing and mostly buffy tail. Fairly short, straight bill. Sexes similar. Found in cloud forest from Venezuela to Ecuador, mostly from 1,500–2,400 m. Usually forages in middle to upper levels of trees. Visits feeders, where it aggressively defends its territory against other hummingbirds.

Conspicuous black-and-white bird with a long tail; wings and tail shine with green and blue gloss in good lighting. A common inhabitant of open and semi-open habitats such as fields and farmlands, often seen perched up on power lines or fence posts. Bulky nests often placed prominently in tall trees or cell towers. Gives loud chattering calls comparable to the noises of an old camera: “chachacha!”

A small, cock-tailed warbler with a bright orange-rufous head. Gray below and olive-brown above with a rufous-tinged tail. Skulks low in thick undergrowth and bamboo of upland forest, locally to sea level. Song is a very loud whistle rising in volume. Call is a short “tsic-tsic.”

A fairly small owl of lowland forest on Mindanao. Dark brown on the head and upperparts with speckles on the wing, a reddish-brown chest, a white belly with thick reddish-brown streaking, and yellowish eyes. Similar to Chocolate Boobook, but Mindanao is much smaller and lacks any white on the chest. Song is a short three-noted phrase “boo-woo! boo!” with the first and second notes slurred.

A widespread medium-sized African hawk with yellow eyes and legs. Highly variable, both by age, sex, and geographically. Gray, gray-brown, or brown on the back and head, with a white throat. The underparts vary from solidly red to barred red to barred brown. Often shows large white spots on top of the black tail. In a large swath of the range in East and Central Africa, there is an all-dark morph. Breeds in rainforest, monsoon forest, riverine forest, thickets, woodland, and exotic plantations, but it has been known to wander widely into more open country. During the breeding season it will soar high in the sky uttering a short sharp “chwik” call in aerial display; the call is given every 2–3 seconds for over a minute at a time. Similarly-plumaged Little Sparrowhawk is much smaller. Visually very similar to Chestnut-flanked Sparrowhawk in areas where they overlap, but African Goshawk is much larger and far more common. Can also be confused with Long-tailed Hawk, but African Goshawk has a shorter tail, darker upperparts, and a clean white throat.