Puff, Not Daddy

A puff-throated babbler (Pellorneum ruficeps) pauses in the open — a place it rarely lingers. It’s a small, round bird of the forest floor, warm brown above with a rufous cap, its white underparts streaked and spotted in dark brown, as though someone had flicked ink up its breast.

You’ll usually know it long before you see it. It lives low in the undergrowth and leaf litter, creeping after insects, and it’s a determined skulker — but a loud one. For its size it has a remarkably big, sweet, whistling song that carries right through the forest, sung with its white throat puffed out, which is how it comes by its name.

This one had come down to the water to drink, feathers still damp, for a fleeting moment in the clear before slipping back into the undergrowth.