Speckled Nightingale-Thrush

Overview

The speckled nightingale-thrush, also known as Sclater's nightingale-thrush, is a species of thrush in the family Turdidae. It is a resident bird found across parts of South America, ranging from Colombia and Venezuela down to Bolivia.

Identification

• Adult males have a mostly black head with an orange eye-ring, while females are dark greyish on the crown and head.
• Upperparts are dark olive with deep apricot-yellow throat, breast, and belly heavily marked with dusky spots.
• Both sexes possess a dark iris, an orange bill, and orange legs and feet, with a body length of 17 to 19 cm.
• The song is a beautiful series of short musical phrases or trills interspersed with whistled notes, and its call is a quiet, rising, mewed 'rhee?'

Habitat

This species has a disjunct distribution across both slopes of the Andes in Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, as well as in parts of Bolivia and Argentina. It primarily inhabits humid tropical and subtropical forest, favouring the undergrowth in damp ravines and along forest streams. Elevation ranges typically between 400 and 2,200 m depending on the region.

Diet

Although its specific diet has not been studied, the bird forages low in the forest understory and on the ground. It sometimes attends army ant swarms to capture fleeing invertebrates.

Did you know?

The species was originally described by Philip Sclater in 1858, which is why it is also known as Sclater's nightingale-thrush.