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Double-striped Thick-knee | Hesperoburhinus bistriatus
Caribische griel | Alcaraván americano
The Double-striped Thick-knee is a large, cryptically patterned thick-knee with long legs, a heavy head and large yellow eyes. It is active mainly at dusk and at night, spending the day standing motionless or crouched in open, dry country. In the region it lives only on Hispaniola, which has its own subspecies, Hesperoburhinus bistriatus dominicensis. In the Dominican Republic it is known as búcaro.
Voice
Heard mainly at night and at dusk: a loud, rapid series of shrill notes, like kee-kee-kee-kee, swelling and fading again and often given by several birds together. Disturbed birds give a short, sharp keek.
Recording: Alfonso Auerbach — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
43–48 cm, standing upright on long, greenish-grey legs. The upperparts are grey-brown with fine dark streaks, the neck and breast pale brown and finely streaked, the belly white. A broad white supercilium is bordered above by a black stripe; this double stripe gives the species its English name. The large eye is yellow, the short, stout bill black with yellow at the base. In flight the dark wings show a white patch on the primaries. The sexes are alike; juveniles are slightly darker and less crisply marked.
Confusion species
There is no other thick-knee in the region. Killdeer Charadrius vociferus is much smaller, with two black breast bands and an orange rump. Southern Lapwing Vanellus chilensis, which is spreading in the south of the region, has a black breast, a thin crest and a pink bill base, and is active by day.
Habitat
Dry, open country with low vegetation: thorn scrub, cactus scrub, savanna, closely grazed pasture and field edges, also near farmsteads. By day it rests in the shade of bushes and relies on its camouflage rather than flight; it prefers to walk away rather than fly. At night it hunts on the ground for insects, worms and other invertebrates, sometimes also taking lizards and small rodents. It lays two eggs in a bare scrape on the ground.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
On Hispaniola, in both the Dominican Republic and Haiti, mainly in the dry lowlands; locally fairly common, but often overlooked because of its nocturnal habits. Isolated vagrants have been recorded from Barbados, Curaçao and Trinidad, presumably from the South American mainland; there are also a few reports from the Bahamas, of unclear origin. Beyond the region from southern Mexico through Central America to Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana and northern Brazil.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Best found at nightfall in dry, open country with scattered bushes, when the birds start calling and come out into the open. By day a resting bird may stand motionless close to a track or yard; its large yellow eyes then give it away sooner than its shape. On Hispaniola the species has long been kept as a pet in yards; such birds say nothing about its wild occurrence.
Conservation status
Not globally threatened. Little has been documented about the size and trend of the population on Hispaniola. Conversion of dry scrub to farmland and housing, the taking of birds as pets and predation by introduced mammals are possible threats.
Scientific name
Hesperoburhinus bistriatus | (Wagler, 1829)
Wagler described the species in 1829 as Charadrius bistriatus; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Hesperoburhinus was introduced in 2023 by Černý, van Els, Natale & Gregory. Hesperoburhinus combines Greek hesperos 'western' with Burhinus: the only thick-knee genus of the Western Hemisphere. bistriatus is Latin, from bi- 'two-' and striatus 'striped', after the double (white and black) stripe above the eye. The specimen the first description was based on came from Mexico.