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La Selle Thrush | Turdus swalesi
Hispaniolalijster | Zorzal de La Selle
The La Selle Thrush is a large, dark thrush of Hispaniola's montane forests. It keeps to the understorey and is mainly heard and seen at dusk and dawn, when it sings or forages on trails and in clearings. The species was only described in 1930, from birds on Morne La Selle in Haiti, which gave it its English and Spanish names.
Voice
The song consists of slow, low phrases such as tu-re-oo and cho-ho-cho, repeated at length, especially at dawn and dusk. Also a loud wheury-wheury-wheury and gurgling notes.
Recording: Ross Gallardy — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
26–27 cm, a heavy Turdus with a fairly long tail. Head, upperparts, wings, tail and upper breast are slaty black; the throat and ear-coverts are finely streaked white. Lower breast and sides are deep rusty red, the centre of the belly and undertail-coverts white. Distinctive features are the yellow-orange eye-ring and the yellow-orange bill with a dark base; the iris is dark and the legs dark grey. The sexes are alike. Birds of the Sierra de Neiba and Cordillera Central (subspecies dodae) have an olive-brown tinge to the back.
Confusion species
Eastern Red-legged Thrush Turdus ardosiaceus, far commoner on Hispaniola and also found lower down, is slate grey with a black-and-white streaked throat, red legs, a red eye-ring and white tail tips, and lacks rusty underparts. American Robin Turdus migratorius is a rare visitor with grey-brown upperparts, an entirely orange-red breast and a white undertail. Rufous-throated Solitaire Myadestes genibarbis is smaller and slimmer, with a rufous throat and a short bill.
Habitat
The understorey of wet evergreen broadleaf forest in the mountains and of pine forest with a dense shrub layer, mostly between 1300 and 2100 m. It forages on the ground for earthworms, insects and other invertebrates, and also takes fruit. In low light it comes out onto trails and forest edges.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
Hispaniola only. The nominate form lives in the Massif de la Selle in south-eastern Haiti and the adjoining Sierra de Bahoruco in south-western Dominican Republic; subspecies dodae occurs in the Sierra de Neiba and Cordillera Central in the Dominican Republic. The range consists of separate mountain blocks; in Haiti the species is locally fairly common, in the Dominican Republic rare and local.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
The high parts of the Sierra de Bahoruco around Zapotén, on the Haitian border, are the best-known site. Best at first and last light, when birds sing and forage on the forest road; during the day they remain almost invisible in the understorey.
Conservation status
Vulnerable. The world population is estimated at a few hundred to a few thousand mature birds and is declining. Hispaniola's montane forest has shrunk greatly through clearance for farming, charcoal and timber, and illegal logging also takes place in protected areas such as the Sierra de Bahoruco.
Scientific name
Turdus swalesi | (Wetmore, 1927)
Wetmore described the species in 1927 as Haplocichla swalesi; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Turdus was introduced in 1758 by Linnaeus. Turdus is the ordinary Latin word for 'thrush'. swalesi honours the American ornithologist Bradshaw Hall Swales (1875–1928), honorary curator at the Smithsonian in Washington. The specimen the first description was based on came from Massif de la Selle, Haiti (c. 1,800 m).