From Opus

Allenia fuscus

Photo by Richard Ford
Photo taken: St. Lucia, Lesser Antilles, Caribbean.

[edit] Identification

9 in (23cm) brown upperparts, white underparts with grayish-brown heavy scaling from throat to belly; one whitish wing bar and white tip to one tertial; black bill; yellow-brown eye; white-tipped tail.

Most difficult to distinguish from the Pearly-eyed Thrasher which has a longer, light-colored bill, white iris, a different pattern to the breast, and is larger.

[edit] Distribution

Caribbean - Lesser Antilles: fairly common resident from Saba and St Bartholomew south to St. Vincent. Rare and local in Grenada and possibly extirpated on St. Eustatius, Barbuda and Barbados. These islands comprise the entire range.

[edit] Taxonomy

Five different subspecies share the range for this species. It seems that this species, the Pearly-eyed Thrasher and the Tremblers (Brown Trembler and Grey Trembler) together constitute a group that originated within the Lesser Antilles.
This species was traditionally placed in the genus Margarops.

[edit] Habitat

Moist and semi-arid forests and woodlands.

[edit] Behaviour

Voice: repeated phrases similar to Tropical Mockingbird, but with less vigor. An alternative description is that the bird alternates between a short, nice sounding, thrush-like sound and an unpleasant sound like a cork on a glass pane.

[edit] External Links