All species › Passerines › Thrushes and allies › Chestnut-bellied Thrush
Chestnut-bellied Thrush | Turdus fulviventris
Bruinbuiklijster | Zorzal ventricastaño | Sabiá-de-barriga-castanha
The Chestnut-bellied Thrush is a thrush of montane forest in the northern Andes, with a black head, a slate-grey back and a rufous belly. It occurs from Venezuela to northern Peru. In the guide area it is widespread, but everywhere fairly scarce and local.
Voice
The song is a series of clear, fluty phrases, fairly slow and with pauses, mainly in the early morning. The call is a soft chuck.
Recording: Mauricio Cuellar Ramirez (@Birding.travel) — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
24–25 cm. The head and throat are black, the upperparts and wings slate-grey. The breast is grey and contrasts sharply with the rufous to chestnut belly. The bill is orange-yellow, with a narrow orange-yellow eye-ring; the legs are yellowish brown. The female is duller, with a less intensely black head. Young birds are browner, with pale spots on the upperparts.
Confusion species
The male Black-hooded Thrush Turdus olivater also has a black head, but an olive-brown back and buff underparts without a rufous belly. Great Thrush Turdus fuscater is larger and uniformly dark. Males of Yellow-legged Thrush Turdus flavipes have a grey belly and yellow legs.
Habitat
Humid montane forest, cloud forest, forest edges and mature secondary forest, at roughly 1500 to 2700 m. It searches the ground and the middle levels for insects and fruit. The nest is a cup in a tree or shrub.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
In Colombia mainly in the Eastern Cordillera, locally also elsewhere in the Andes and in the Serranía de Perijá. In Ecuador on the eastern slope of the Andes. In Peru in the north, in Cajamarca and Amazonas. Absent from Bolivia and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in the Andes and the Perijá in Venezuela.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Search in the early morning along forest edges and roads through cloud forest on the eastern slope, where birds feed on the ground or in fruiting trees.
Conservation status
Least Concern. It depends on montane forest and is therefore sensitive to deforestation, but also occurs in forest edges and mature secondary forest.
Scientific name
Turdus fulviventris | Sclater, 1858
Sclater described the species in 1858 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Turdus was introduced in 1758 by Linnaeus. The genus name comes from Latin turdus, 'thrush'. The species name comes from Latin fulvus, 'tawny', and venter, 'belly': 'tawny-bellied'. The specimen the first description was based on came from Bogotá, Colombia.