Sooty Thrush

The sooty thrush is 24 to 25.5 cm (9.4 to 10 in) long and weighs about 96 g (3.4 oz). The species is sexually dimorphic. Adult males have a mostly brownish black head and body with sooty black lores and an orange eye-ring. Their wings and tail are also sooty black. Adult females resemble males but are browner overall and sometimes have some darker streaks on the throat. Both sexes have a white iris, a yellow-orange bill, and orange legs and feet. Juveniles have dark brown upperparts with buff streaks and buff underparts with dark brown spots. They have a white chin, a pale iris, and a brownish yellow bill, legs, and feet. The superficially similar mountain thrush (T. plebejus) shares its range but is uniformly brown with dark bare parts. It also resembles the slaty-backed nightingale-thrush (Catharus fuscater) but there is no range overlap.

The sooty thrush has a disjunct distribution. It is found in Costa Rica's Cordillera Central and Cordillera de Talamanca; the latter range extends into far western Panama's Chiriquí Province. In the Cordillera Central it occurs on volcanos separated by low passes, and a major valley separates them from the Cordillera de Talamanca. The sooty thrush inhabits the edges of montane evergreen forest, semi-humid to humid montane scrublands, and second-growth scrublands in the subtropical and temperate zones. The scrubby areas include páramo, bogs, and pastures. In elevation it ranges from 2,150 to 3,500 m (7,100 to 11,500 ft) but is most common above 2,400 m (7,900 ft).

The sooty thrush feeds on a variety of insects, spiders, and fruits and berries. It forages mostly on the ground in open areas and along the forest edge. It pokes into grass clumps and flips leaves with its bill. It usually forages in small loose flocks.