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Red-breasted Meadowlark | Leistes militaris
Zwartkopsoldatenspreeuw | Pastorero pechirrojo
The Red-breasted Meadowlark is a small black and red blackbird of moist grassland in Central and South America. In the Caribbean it lives only on Trinidad, where it is common in open country. It was long placed in the genus Sturnella with the meadowlarks, and now sits with a few relatives in Leistes. The species is spreading in Central America as forest is cleared for pasture.
Voice
The song is a short series of chip notes followed by a long, thin buzz, given from a post or grass head or in song flight: the male rises to about 10 m and then parachutes down singing on spread wings. The call is a short, dry chek.
Recording: Mauricio Cuéllar-Ramírez — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
About 19 cm, stocky, with a long pointed bill and short tail. The male is black with a bright red throat, breast and belly and a red shoulder; in fresh plumage after the moult the black and red are veiled by brown and buff feather edges, which gradually wear away. The female is dark brown above with buff edges and streaks, with pale stripes through the crown and over the eye; the underparts are buff with a pink to red wash on the breast and fine streaks on the flanks. Juveniles resemble the female but are paler and lack the red.
Confusion species
No other black bird with a red breast occurs on Trinidad. The female resembles that of Yellow-hooded Blackbird Chrysomus icterocephalus, which has a yellow throat and supercilium and lives in reed marshes. Female Shiny Cowbird Molothrus bonariensis is plain grey-brown, without streaks or a red wash.
Habitat
Wet and dry grassland, savanna, pasture, rice fields, rough field edges and the margins of freshwater marshes, preferably with an odd bush or post as a song perch. It feeds on the ground on insects and seeds. The nest is a deep, grass-lined cup on the ground among tall grass; several nests are often close together.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
Resident on Trinidad, in open country in the lower parts of the island, such as the Aripo Savannah, the Caroni rice fields and the area around Nariva Swamp. Rare and irregular on Tobago; it is unclear whether these are a small breeding population or wanderers. A few vagrants have been reported from Aruba. Outside the region from south-western Costa Rica through Panama and northern South America to Peru and central Brazil.
- Resident
- Summer visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- Winter visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
The grasslands around the Aripo livestock research station and the Caroni rice fields, in the morning when the males sing. A singing male on a post or in song flight can be seen from afar; females stay in the grass and flush only when approached closely.
Conservation status
Not threatened. The species is widespread and benefits from the conversion of forest to pasture; on Trinidad it is common in suitable open country.
Scientific name
Leistes militaris | (Linnaeus, 1758) (GBIF: Sturnella militaris)
Linnaeus described the species in 1758 as E[mberiza] militaris; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Leistes was introduced in 1825 by Vigors. Leistes is Greek lēistēs 'robber, plunderer', probably after the habit of raiding grain fields. militaris is Latin for 'military, of a soldier', after the red breast recalling a soldier's red tunic. The specimen the first description was based on came from Suriname.