Speckled Nightingale-Thrush - BirdForum Opus

Photo by Fritz73
Photo taken: Calilegua NP, Jujuy, Argentina.

Alternative name: Sclater's Nightingale-Thrush

Identification

White to yellow underside with black or grey spots reaching upper throat and chin
Black head
Red to orange eye-ring
Upperside dark greyish olive
Reddish-orange bill and legs

Formerly combined with Yellow-throated Nightingale-Thrush into Spotted Nightingale-Thrush.

Two subspecies are recognized^[1].

Andes of Venezuela and of Colombia (except for Pacific slope) and eastern slope of Andes of Ecuador, Peru, and northern Bolivia; western slope of Andes in Ecuador

Cloud forest at 600 - 2300 m asl, and specifically linked to undergrowth in the forest.

Shy and not easily seen. When seen usually is on the ground. It seems to search for food among leaf litter.

Described as rich musical whistles well spaced with alternating higher and lower pitch.

Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, S. M. Billerman, T. A. Fredericks, J. A. Gerbracht, D. Lepage, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2021. The eBird/Clements checklist of Birds of the World: v2021. Downloaded from https://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
Herzog, SK, RS Terrill, AE Jahn, JV Remsen Jr.,O Maillars Z, VH Garcia-Soliz, R MacLeod, A Maccormick, & JQ Vidoz, 2019. Birds of Bolivia, Revised first ed. Associacion Armonia and Future Generations University Press. ISBN 975-99974-922-7-2
Collar, N. (2021). Speckled Nightingale-Thrush (Catharus maculatus), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.sponit2.01

BirdForum Opus contributors. (2025) Speckled Nightingale-Thrush. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 11 May 2025 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Speckled_Nightingale-Thrush

GSearch checked for 2020 platform.