These water kingfishers are descended from a common ancestor which seems to have been closely related to a progenitor of the Pied Kingfisher (which at that stage had not yet lost the metallic plumage tone), and are similar in plumage and habits (Moyle, 2006).
It is, of course, in breeding plumage in the southern summer, when Arctic has moulted to its non-breeding plumage (though this is not useful for separating it from another species, the South American Tern).
It commonly includes Jerdon's Leafbird (C. jerdoni) from the Indian Subcontinent, and the Bornean Leafbird (C. kinabaluensis) from northern Borneo as subspecies, but differs from both in measurements and morphology, with Jerdon's lacking any blue to the flight feathers, and Bornean having a distinctive male-like female plumage.
In Malaysia, the island of Langkawi is named after the bird ('kawi' denoting an ochre-like stone used to decorate pottery, and a reference to the bird's primary plumage colour).
One individual in breeding plumage was seen by the river at Bonzon near Gangaw – just inside the Chin State of Burma –, west of the species' usual range, on April 8, 1995.
Francis of Assisi considered the Crested Lark a bird of special significance, based on similarities he perceived between it and the life of the Friars Minor: its plain earth-colored plumage and hood, its humility ("for it goes willingly along the wayside and finds a grain of corn for itself"), and its time spent in song.
The male Orange and Yellow Chats have bright yellow/gold plumage, whereas the females are much duller grey.
It was named after the zoologist Constantin Wilhelm Lambert Gloger, who first remarked upon this phenomenon in 1833 in a review of covariation of climate and avian plumage color.
The plumage of both subspecies is very similar to that of the related Spot-billed, Tawny-tufted and Gould's Toucanets.
Golden-naped tanagers have plumage similar to those of the Metallic-green Tanager, the Swallow Tanager
Altogether, Rhynchostruthus seems to belong to a group of Carduelinae which includes such birds as Carduelis, the Oriole Finch (Linurgus olivaceus), and the canaries, many of which have large amounts of brilliant yellow plumage.
It is an extremely rare vagrant north of its breeding range, with recent records from Finland and the Netherlands, though wanderers may be overlooked due to its similarity, in non-breeding plumage, to the closely related and far commoner Ortolan Bunting
Race maderaspatensis of the Eastern Ghats is intermediate in plumage between the nominate form and obscurus.
Its closest relative appears to be the Chestnut-naped Antpitta and the Pale-billed Antpitta, with which it forms a group of antpittas with uniform breast plumage and smoky-grey flanks.
At about 4.75 inches (12 cm) long and weighing about 0.4 oz (11.5 g), it is slightly bigger than the Lesser Goldfinch and slightly smaller than the American Goldfinch, with less yellow in the plumage than either.
The Orange-breasted Falcon has a similar plumage to the much smaller Bat Falcon and is generally considered most closely related to that species now.
It is similar in plumage to the Scarlet Robin of Australia, and until recently the two were considered conspecific until split in 1999 by Schodde and Mason.
The young couple preferred to live at Maadi close to Wadi Digha where they kept a pet raven and conducted experiments to see if the plumage colours of larks were genetically inherited.
Several of the mutations known are related to pigmentation: premature silvering in mice, diluted and white plumage in chickens, and the widely known merle dilution in dogs.
It is a small bird 11.5–13 cm long, very closely similar to the Siberian Stonechat in both plumage and behaviour, differing in only small details, notably having a slightly broader-based bill 4.7–5.7 mm wide (4.0–4.9 mm wide in Siberian Stonechat) and slightly less white on the rump.
humilis of the southwestern Cape has almost unstreaked upperparts, and S. g. reichardi, (southern Zaire to southern Tanzania and northern Mozambique) has a distinctly streaked breast even in adult plumage.
In 1928 Australian ornithologist Gregory Mathews recognized that the plumage of the race from Lord Howe Island was much browner and more greyish than the plumage of the Norfolk Island race and split the species into two forms, the Norfolk Starling (Aplonis fusca fusca), and Lord Howe Starling (Aplonis fusca hulliana).
In 1970, he photographed L'uccello dalle piume di cristallo (The Bird with the Crystal Plumage), the first film directed by Dario Argento.
This woodswallow's soft-plumage is charcoal grey apart from the white underparts that give the species its English and scientific names, in contrast to the related Great Woodswallow whose upper side is a more glossy black.
Juveniles are noticeably shorter-billed, more sooty-black, and have duller plumage.