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Cuban Solitaire | Myadestes elisabeth
Cubaanse solitaire | Ruiseñor
The Cuban Solitaire is a slim, plain thrush of the mountain forests of Cuba, best known for its song. In Cuba it is called ruiseñor. The species lives in two separate areas, in the west and the east of the island. A distinct subspecies on the Isla de la Juventud is extinct.
Voice
A series of high, fluted, varied notes with a metallic quality, likened to rubbing a wet finger round the rim of a glass. The song is ventriloquial. The call is a short whistle.
Recording: GABRIEL LEITE — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
19–21 cm, slim, with a short, broad bill, a fairly long tail and an upright stance. Upperparts olive-brown, underparts dull greyish white, greyer on the breast. A thin white eye-ring, a whitish spot in front of the eye and a dark malar stripe beside the throat. The outer tail feathers are white and show in flight. The upper mandible is blackish, the lower horn-coloured with a dark tip. The sexes are alike. Juveniles are flecked buff above and mottled brown below.
Confusion species
Cuban Pewee Contopus caribaeus also perches upright in forest but is smaller, with a white crescent behind the eye and no white tail sides, and catches insects in short sallies. Western Red-legged Thrush Turdus plumbeus is larger and grey, with red legs, a red bill and a black-and-white throat. Northern Mockingbird Mimus polyglottos also has white tail sides but also white wing patches, and lives in open country.
Habitat
Moist and semi-evergreen forest, pine forest, forest on limestone outcrops (mogotes), montane rainforest and cloud forest in hills and mountains, up to about 2000 m. It forages for fruit and insects in the lower and middle storeys, often in short sallies from a branch. The nest is a cup of plant fibres, rootlets and moss, placed in a rock crevice, a tree hole or a niche in a steep bank; breeding is from February to July.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
Cuba only. In the west in the Sierra de los Órganos and the Sierra del Rosario (Pinar del Río and Artemisa provinces); in the east in the Sierra Maestra and the Nipe-Sagua-Baracoa mountains. Absent from the centre of the island. The Isla de la Juventud subspecies is extinct. The species does not occur outside Cuba.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In the western mountains the species can be found around Viñales, Soroa and La Güira; in the east in the forests of the Sierra Maestra and Alexander von Humboldt National Park. The song, especially early in the morning, is the best clue; a singing bird often sits still on a shaded branch.
Conservation status
Not threatened, but the population (estimated at 10,000–50,000 mature birds) is decreasing. Threats are deforestation and trapping for the cage-bird trade.
Scientific name
Myadestes elisabeth | (Lembeye, 1850)
Lembeye described the species in 1850 as Muscicapa elisabeth; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Myadestes was introduced in 1838 by Swainson. Myadestes is Greek, from muia 'fly' and edestēs 'eater': 'fly-eater'. elisabeth honours Queen Isabella I of Castile (1451–1504), under whose reign Columbus reached Cuba. The specimen the first description was based on came from Cuba.