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Western Spindalis | Spindalis zena
Westelijke spindalis | Cabrero
The Western Spindalis is the most widespread of the four spindalises, a small family (Spindalidae) of fruit-eating songbirds found only in the Caribbean. The four were long treated as a single species among the tanagers; they are now regarded as separate species in a family of their own. Five subspecies are recognised, spread across the Bahamas, Cuba, Grand Cayman and Cozumel. In Cuba the bird is called cabrero.
Voice
The song is a high, thin series such as zee-tit-zee, sometimes running into buzzier phrases. The call is a thin seeip or tsee.
Recording: FREDERIC Lionel — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
15–17 cm, with a short, thick, dark bill. The male has a black head with a white supercilium and a white moustachial stripe, a small yellow chin spot, and a tawny-orange throat, breast and nape collar. The rump is orange-yellow, the belly white to greyish. The wings are black with white edges and a white patch at the base of the primaries; the tail is black with white in the outer feathers. The back is olive-green in Cuba and Grand Cayman, but black in birds of the central and southern Bahamas, which also have all-black wings and a narrow black border along the breast. The female is olive-grey above and paler grey-brown below, with an orange wash, two faint pale facial stripes and a small white wing spot.
Confusion species
The male is identified by its striped head and tawny breast; orioles such as Baltimore Oriole Icterus galbula are also orange but have a pointed bill and no white head pattern. The female resembles a female Summer Tanager Piranga rubra, which is larger and plainer yellow-olive, with a longer, pale bill and no facial stripes or white wing spot. Greater Antillean Bullfinch Melopyrrha violacea is much darker, with a heavy bill.
Habitat
Forest and forest edge of many types: dry and semi-evergreen forest, pine forest in the Bahamas, coastal woodland, scrub and mangroves, and also gardens and parks. It eats mainly berries and fruit, as well as flower buds and some insects. Found singly, in pairs or in small groups, often at fruiting trees. The nest is a loose cup of grass and rootlets in a shrub or tree.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
Resident in the Bahamas, Cuba with the Isla de la Juventud and the cays, and Grand Cayman; also reported from the Turks and Caicos Islands, where its status is unclear. Absent from Jamaica, Hispaniola and Puerto Rico, which have other spindalises. Outside the region on Cozumel (Mexico); a rare visitor to southern Florida, where breeding was confirmed in 2009.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In Cuba almost anywhere with forest, for example in the Sierra del Rosario and on the Zapata Peninsula; in the Bahamas in pine forest and coastal coppice. Fruiting trees and shrubs are the best places. The thin song is often missed; the bird is often noticed only when it flies from tree to tree.
Conservation status
Not threatened. The species is common and also occurs in secondary forest, gardens and parks.
Scientific name
Spindalis zena | (Linnaeus, 1758)
Linnaeus described the species in 1758 as Fringilla Zena; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Spindalis was introduced in 1837 by Jardine & Selby. Spindalis comes from the Greek spindalos or pindalos, an unidentified Indian bird said to be akin to the attagas (a gamebird). zena comes from the Greek zēna or zēnē, a kind of finch, probably the European Goldfinch. The specimen the first description was based on came from New Providence, Bahamas.