Maroon-backed Whistler

The maroon-backed whistler is a thick-billed Sulawesi songbird about 15 cm long. The male is mostly dark sooty grey with a sharply contrasting maroon or dark chestnut back and rump. Females and juveniles are rusty brown above and dull olive or buffy brown below, becoming paler beneath the tail. Females lack the yellow flanks of Hylocitrea and have a darker breast than the sulphur-bellied whistler (eBird/Merlin and BirdForum general species accounts).

Singles and pairs keep low in the understorey of mountain forest, chiefly around 1,500–2,200 m, where their shy behaviour can make them difficult to see. They take insects, apparently by short sallies to surfaces. Calls include whipping phrases rendered chiyoo-WHIT or chi-WHIT and a quieter brrrr-chit. The endemic species is monotypic and has sometimes been placed in Pachycephala rather than Coracornis. No breeding biology is known from the sources opened (eBird/Merlin; BirdForum citing Handbook of the Birds of the World).