Yellow-legged Thrush - BirdForum Opus

Adult male of race xanthoscela
Photo by Steve G
Main Ridge Forest Reserve, Tobago

Turdus flavipes

Platycichla flavipes

Identification

22-23 cm (8½-9 in)
Male

• Black hood and upper breast, wings, and tail
• Rest of body paler grey.
• Yellow legs, bill, and eye ring are yellow

Female, Nominate subspecies
Photo by Francisco Paludo
Santo Amaro da Imperatriz, SC, Brazil, November 2016

Females

• Brown upperparts, paler underparts
• Pale throat with dark streaks
• Yellow legs
• Brownish bill
  

Juveniles are brownish with buffy spots on upperside and buffy with dark scallops on underside. There seems to be a gradual development of adult plumage, so immature males often have pale spots on wing-coverts.

Variation

The paler areas on the body of the male varies from medium grey in venezuelensis to dark slaty grey in melanopleura (some of these are almost as dark as the following) and all black in xanthoscela. Brazilian birds are intermediate between venezuelensis and melanopleura.
Females are mostly similar to each other in upperparts but vary between warm buffy and darker grey-brown on undersides -- some subspecies have pale spots on wings. Juveniles vary widely in how dark they are.

Distribution

Subspecies venezuelensis
Photo by iainp
Sierra Nevada National Park, Venezuela, April 2010

Caribbean and South America
Carribbean: Trinidad and Tobago
South America (several separate populations): Andes of north-eastern Colombia and western Venezuela, coastal mountains of Venezuela and Isla Margarita, Tepui mountains at the border of Venezuela, Guyana, and Brazil, coastal eastern mountains of Brazil to where these meets Paraguay and Argentina.

Taxonomy

Used to be placed in genus Platycichla.

Subspecies

Subspecies flavipes
Photo by Luiz
Itatiaia National Park, Brazil, July 2007

Five subspecies are recognized^[1]:

• T. f. venezuelensis
  • Northern Colombia to northern and western Venezuela
• T. f. melanopleura
  • North-eastern Venezuela, Isla Margarita and Trinidad
• T. f. xanthoscela
  • Tobago
• T. f. polionota
  • Southern Venezuela (Bolívar) and Guyana
• T. f. flavipes
  • South-eastern Brazil (southern Bahia) to north-eastern Paraguay and north-eastern Argentina
    

Habitat

Rainforest, secondary woodland and overgrown plantations; mainland areas always at medium elevation (500-1500 m asl), on the islands (Trinidad, Tobago, Isla Margarita) at lower elevation.

Behaviour

Diet

They feed in trees and bushes. Their main diet consists of fruit, berries and also insects .

Breeding

The nest is a lined shallow cup of twigs on a bank or amongst rocks. The clutch consists of 2-3 reddish-blotched green or blue eggs.

References

1. Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, D. Roberson, T. A. Fredericks, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2016. The eBird/Clements checklist of birds of the world: v2016, with updates to August 2016. Downloaded from http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
2. Kenefick, Restall, Hayes, 2007. Field guide to the birds of Trinidad and Tobago. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-13557-2
3. Restall et al. 2006. Birds of Northern South America. Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300124156
4. Ridgely and Tudor 2009. Field guide to the songbirds of South America - The Passerines. University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-0-292-71979-8
5. Ber van Perlo. 2009. A field guide to the Birds of Brazil. Oxford University Press, New York, NY, USA. ISBN 978-0-19-530155-7
6. Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive (retrieved November 2015)
7. Wikipedia

• List of references

Recommended Citation

• BirdForum Opus contributors. (2024) Yellow-legged Thrush. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 16 April 2024 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Yellow-legged_Thrush

External Links

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