Scrub Blackbird - BirdForum Opus

Nominate subspecies
Photo © by mmdnje
Guayaquil, Ecuador, 25 July 2008

Identification

c. 21½ cm (8½ in)
Completely glossy-black including eyes. Notice that legs are quite long and tail relatively short

Ecuador and Peru west of the Andes. Recently expanded to northwest Chile.

Previously lumped with Melodious Blackbird (Dives dives) of Mexico and Middle America.

Two subspecies are recognized^[1]:

D.w. warczewiczi: Coastal scrub of southwest Ecuador and northwest Peru (Tumbes and Piura) - Smaller, more bluish.
D.w. kalinowskii: Coastal scrub of western Peru (La Libertad to Ica) - Larger, more violet.

Lowland coastal scrub and adjacent semiopen areas.

Usually forage on the ground but stay close to bushes where it can seek shelter if threatened.

Their loud and complex song is created by duetting between the male and female of a pair, each bird singing different parts to create a whole song.

Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, D. Roberson, T. A. Fredericks, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2018. The eBird/Clements checklist of birds of the world: v2018. Downloaded from http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
Scrub Blackbird (Dives warczewiczi), In Neotropical Birds Online (T. S. Schulenberg, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. retrieved from Neotropical Birds Online: https://neotropical.birds.cornell.edu/Species-Account/nb/species/scrbla1
Fraga, R. (2019). Scrub Blackbird (Dives warczewiczi). In: del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, D.A. & de Juana, E. (eds.). Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona. (retrieved from https://www.hbw.com/node/62282 on 27 June 2019).
Jaramillo, A. & Burke, P. (1999) New World Blackbirds: The Icterids. Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton, New Jersey.

BirdForum Opus contributors. (2024) Scrub Blackbird. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 26 December 2024 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Scrub_Blackbird