All species › Passerines › Thrushes and allies › Yellow-legged Thrush
Yellow-legged Thrush | Turdus flavipes
Geelpootlijster | Zorzal azulado | Sabiá-una
The Yellow-legged Thrush is a thrush of humid montane forest, the male of which is black and slate-grey, with a yellow bill, eye-ring and legs. In the guide area it occurs only in northern Colombia. Beyond that it has a widely scattered range, from Venezuela and Trinidad to south-eastern Brazil.
Voice
The song is a long, varied series of musical phrases, often including imitations of other birds, mainly in the early morning from the canopy. The call is a soft chuk and a high, thin tseep.
Recording: Fabrício Grigolin — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
21–22 cm. The male has a black head, throat, breast, wings and tail, a slate-grey mantle and back and a grey belly. The bill, eye-ring and legs are bright yellow. The female is olive-brown above and paler buffy brown below, with a whitish, brown-streaked throat, a duller, yellowish brown bill and yellowish legs. Young birds are brown, with pale spots on the upperparts and dark spots on the underparts.
Confusion species
The male Black-hooded Thrush Turdus olivater also has a black head, but an olive-brown back and ochre underparts. The male Glossy-black Thrush Turdus serranus is entirely glossy black, without grey. Chestnut-bellied Thrush Turdus fulviventris has a rufous belly. Females resemble other brown thrushes, but the yellow legs are a useful feature.
Habitat
Humid montane forest, cloud forest, forest edges, old secondary forest and shade-coffee plantations, roughly between 500 and 2000 m. It lives mainly in the canopy and middle strata, where it eats fruit and berries; it comes to the ground less often. Outside the breeding season birds move to fruiting trees. The nest is a cup in a tree.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
In Colombia in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, the Serranía de Perijá and the Eastern Cordillera in Norte de Santander. Absent from Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in the mountains of Venezuela, on Trinidad and Tobago, on the tepuis and in a separate area in south-eastern Brazil, eastern Paraguay and north-eastern Argentina.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Look in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta at fruiting trees along forest edges and roads; the males sing from the canopy in the early morning.
Conservation status
Least Concern. In Colombia restricted to a small number of mountain ranges, where it depends on montane forest and shade-coffee plantations.
Scientific name
Turdus flavipes | Vieillot, 1818
Vieillot described the species in 1818 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 flavus, 'yellow', and pes, 'foot': 'yellow-footed'. The specimen the first description was based on came from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.