Malabar Trogon

The Malabar trogon is a brightly coloured forest bird in which the sexes differ. The male has a slaty-black head and breast, with a white border separating the black bib from crimson underparts, an olive-brown to chestnut back and black wing coverts finely vermiculated white. In the female the crimson is replaced by ochre and the head is only slightly darker than the back. Both have a bluish bill and bluish skin around the eye, dark brown eyes, pale blue feet and a long, graduated tail with white tips to the outer feathers (Wikipedia, general species account).

It eats insects and is not migratory, though it may move seasonally in response to rain in hill forest. It perches very still under the canopy, often facing away and sometimes clinging sideways to branches, and gives low, guttural or purring calls that carry only a short distance, so it is easy to miss despite its colours. Like all trogons it has an unusual toe arrangement. SoIB 2023 treats it as endemic to the Indian subcontinent and a resident forest bird, estimates a long-term decline of about 46%, and rates it a Moderate conservation priority (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).