Lyre Tailed

The cloud forest supports a wide diversity of fauna with such notable species as turkey vulture Cathartes aura, Andean guan Penelope montagnii, scarlet-fronted parakeet Aratinga wagleri, lyre-tailed nightjar Uropsalis lyra, marvellous spatuletail Loddigesia mirabilis (VU), cock-of-the-rock Rupicola peruviana, carbonated flower-piercer Diglossa carbonaria and hepatic tanager Piranga flava (Mittermeier, de Macedo and Luscombe, 1975). ❋ Unknown (2008)

(Artami), which closely resemble swallows in their habits and flight but differ much in form and structure, twitter from the tree-tops; while a lyre-tailed drongo-shrike, with brilliant black plumage and milk-white eyes, continually deceives the naturalist by the variety of its unmelodious notes. ❋ Unknown (2004)

Twice over they came across the lyre-tailed pheasant; but the birds escaped uninjured, so that they did not secure the wonderful tail-feathers for a trophy. ❋ George Manville Fenn (1870)

Thousands of crows, rather smaller than our rook, keep up a constant cawing in these plantations; the curious wood-swallows (Artami), which closely resemble swallows in their habits and flight but differ much in form and structure, twitter from the tree-tops; while a lyre-tailed drongo-shrike, with brilliant black plumage and milk-white eyes, continually deceives the naturalist by the variety of its unmelodious notes. ❋ Alfred Russel Wallace (1868)

'Fowl: the lyre-tailed pheasant, that makes a shelter for its nest with its own tail.' ❋ Charlotte Mary Yonge (1862)