The
Yellow-legged Thrush (
Platycichla flavipes) is a
songbird of northern and eastern
South America. In recent times, it is increasingly often placed in the
genus Turdus again.ffrench
et al. (1991), Clement & Hathaway (2000), Hilty (2003), BLI (2009)
Description
This
thrush is long and weighs . Both sexes have yellow legs and eye-ring. The male has a yellow bill and its
plumage is usually black with a slate-grey back and lower underparts. However, the hue of the grey areas varies, and the male of one of the five
subspecies,
P. f. xanthoscelus of
Tobago, is all-black, resembling the male
Eurasian Blackbird (
Turdus merula). Females have a dull bill, warm brown upperparts and paler underparts. The
juvenile male is brownish with black wings and tail, while the juvenile female resemble the
adult female, but is duller, flecked with orange above and spotted and barred with dark brown below.ffrench
et al. (1991), Clement & Hathaway (2000), Hilty (2003)
The song of the male is musical phrases,
sreep, sreee, sree, sreee, again somewhat resembling that of the Eurasian Blackbird, but sometimes including some imitation of other birds songs. The typical call is a sharp
srip and a peculiar
seeet given in alarm.
Distribution and ecology
It has a highly
disjunct distribution. One population breeds in northern
Colombia,
Venezuela, far northern
Brazil,
Trinidad, and
Tobago, as well as...
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