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Spectacled Thrush | Turdus nudigenis
Naaktooglijster | Zorzal caripelado
The Spectacled Thrush is a grey-brown thrush with a broad, bare yellow ring around the eye, which gives it a staring look. It is a bird of semi-open country, plantations, gardens and villages, common on Trinidad and Tobago, where it is known as the big-eye grieve. In the Lesser Antilles it spread northwards during the twentieth century.
Voice
A musical warble, slower and lower-pitched than that of Cocoa Thrush. The best-known call is a cat-like, mewing queeoow; when uneasy a kereel.
Recording: Denis Dujardin — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
23–24 cm. Upperparts plain olive-brown to grey-brown, underparts paler grey-brown. The throat is off-white with brown streaks, the belly and undertail whitish. The broad, bare, yellow to orange-yellow eye-ring is characteristic; the bill is yellow to olive-yellow, the legs grey. The sexes are alike. Juveniles are pale-spotted above and dark-spotted below, with a narrower eye-ring.
Confusion species
Cocoa Thrush Turdus fumigatus is warmer rufous-brown, without a bare eye-ring and with a dark bill. White-necked Thrush Turdus albicollis has a white half-collar below the streaked throat, a narrow eye-ring and lives in the forest interior. On Saint Lucia, Dominica and Guadeloupe, Forest Thrush Turdus lherminieri is scaled below, with yellow legs and a yellow iris. Tropical Mockingbird Mimus gilvus is grey and white, with a long tail and no yellow eye-ring.
Habitat
Open woodland, forest edges and clearings, dry and moist secondary forest, coastal woodland, plantations, orchards, pasture with trees, parks, gardens and villages. It forages on lawns and open ground for worms and insects and eats much fruit. The nest is a sturdy, lined cup of twigs low in a tree; only the female incubates.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
Common on Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, the Grenadines, Saint Vincent, Saint Lucia and Martinique, where it became established around 1951. Further north recently on Dominica and Guadeloupe, where the spread is ongoing. Outside the area in northern and eastern Colombia, Venezuela, the Guianas and northern Brazil.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In gardens, parks and hotel grounds on Trinidad, Tobago and the Windward Islands the species is often seen without searching, on lawns or in fruit trees. On the more northerly islands new records are worth reporting, as the spread is still being followed.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The species benefits from man-made landscapes and is expanding its range in the Lesser Antilles.
Scientific name
Turdus nudigenis | de Lafresnaye, 1848
De Lafresnaye described the species in 1848 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Turdus was introduced in 1758 by Linnaeus. Turdus is the ordinary Latin word for 'thrush'. nudigenis is Latin, from nudus 'bare' and gena 'cheek', after the bare yellow skin around the eye. The specimen the first description was based on came from Caracas, Venezuela.