Red-legged Thrush

Well-attired small songbird typically associated with mid- to high-elevation farms, fields, and open forests throughout its range. Found in less intensively developed areas than House and Eurasian Tree Sparrows, sticking to villages and pastures and staying away from large city centers. Male has bright chestnut cap and back, whitish cheek, narrow black throat, and pale gray belly. Female brownish with broad streaks above, pale below, with white wingbars and broad tan supercilium.

A graceful looking flycatcher, the adult male sport a long ribbonlike tail. The males occur in two color morphs cinnamon and white. Both color morphs sport a glossy black head with blue ring around the eye, but white morph is entirely white below while the cinnamon morph has cinnamon upperparts and tail, and dirty white underparts. The females are cinnamon above with a grayish throat, a shorter tail, and they lack the male’s blue eyering. They make short aerial sallies after insects, usually returning to the same perch. Occasionally descends to ground to pull apart insects. Chiefly found in wooded habitats. Their call is a harsh “shreew.”

Both sexes show a clean black head and rufous underparts. Males vary considerably across the range. The wing can be completely rufous or have a white stripe; the back can be rufous or gray; and the central tail feathers can be slightly or greatly elongated. Both sexes have a blue bill and ring around the eye. Found in various types of forest and in plantations and thickets. Restless, active, mid-story bird that often joins mixed-species feeding flocks. Call is a series of tearing “shreet” notes, and song a fast, bubbling series of “twee” notes. Similar to other paradise-flycatchers, but easily separated by the rufous underparts and cleanly demarcated black head.