Red-billed Leiothrix

Basic Description

The energetic Red-billed Leiothrix is often just a blur moving in dense vegetation, but a closer look reveals an exquisite songbird with a glowing yellow throat; intense yellow, orange, and scarlet wing highlights; and a satiny-black tail with a graceful flared shape. This social species forages in noisy flocks for fruits and invertebrates in thick forest understory. Red-billed Leiothrix is native to southeastern China and the Himalayas and has been introduced to the Hawaiian Islands, Japan, Reunion, and parts of southern Europe.