Yellow-legged Thrush
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| iYellow-legged Thrush | ||||||||||||||
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| Platycichla flavipes (Vieillot, 1818) |
The Yellow-legged Thrush, Platycichla flavipes, is a resident breeding bird in South America. It has a discontinuous range, breeding in eastern Colombia, Venezuela, western Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, with a separate population in southeastern Brazil.
The habitat of this large thrush is mountain rainforest and other closed woodland. The nest is a lined shallow cup of twigs on a bank or amongst rocks. Two to three reddish-blotched green or blue eggs are laid.
The Yellow-legged Thrush is 22-23 cm long and weighs 57g. Both sexes have a yellow bill, legs and eyering. The male has a black head, throat and upper breast, wings and tail, and slate grey back and lower belly. Females have warm brown upperparts and paler underparts.
Sexes are similar, but young birds are duller, flecked with orange above and spotted and barred with dark brown below. There are five races, differing mainly in the details of the plumage. The most distinctive is P. f. xanthoscelus of Tobago, in which the male is completely black, thereby resembling the male European Blackbird.
The Yellow-legged Thrush mainly feeds in trees and bushes on fruit and some insects. It is a shy species, and the female in particular is difficult to see, since she does not sing. The song of the male is musical phrases, sreep, sreee, sree, sreee, again somewhat resembling that of the Blackbird, but including some imitation, and the call is a sharp srip.
[edit] References
- BirdLife International (2004). Platycichla flavipes. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 12 May 2006. Database entry includes justification for why this species is of least concern
- Thrushes by Clement and Hathaway, ISBN 0-7136-3940-7
- Birds of Venezuela by Hilty, ISBN 0-7136-6418-5
- Birds of Trinidad and Tobago by ffrench, ISBN 0-7136-6759-1
