The Aztec thrush (''Ridgwayia pinicola'') is a species of

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

in the family

Turdidae The thrushes are a passerine bird family, Turdidae, with a worldwide distribution. The family was once much larger before biologists reclassified the former subfamily Saxicolinae, which includes the chats and European robins, as Old World flycat ...

. It is found mainly in

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

, but

vagrants Vagrancy is the condition of homelessness without regular employment or income. Vagrants (also known as bums, vagabonds, rogues, tramps or drifters) usually live in poverty and support themselves by begging, scavenging, petty theft, temporar ...

are occasionally seen in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. Its natural

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

montane forest Montane ecosystems are found on the slopes of mountains. The alpine climate in these regions strongly affects the ecosystem because temperatures fall as elevation increases, causing the ecosystem to stratify. This stratification is a crucial f ...

s. The IUCN Red List denotes it as a least-concern species.

Taxonomy

Philip Sclater Philip Lutley Sclater (4 November 1829 – 27 June 1913) was an England, English lawyer and zoologist. In zoology, he was an expert ornithologist, and identified the main zoogeographic regions of the world. He was Secretary of the Zoological ...

described the species as ''Turdus pinicola'' from southern Mexico in 1859. In 1882,

Leonhard Stejneger Leonhard Hess Stejneger (30 October 1851 – 28 February 1943) was a Norwegian-born American ornithologist, herpetologist and zoologist. Stejneger specialized in vertebrate natural history studies. He gained his greatest reputation with reptiles ...

moved the species into its own genus, ''Ridgwayia''. The genus name honors ornithologist

Robert Ridgway Robert Ridgway (July 2, 1850 – March 25, 1929) was an American ornithologist specializing in systematics. He was appointed in 1880 by Spencer Fullerton Baird, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, to be the first full-time curator of bird ...

. It is also placed in the genus '' Zoothera''. Two subspecies are recognized: ''R. p. maternalis'' found in the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, and ''R. p. pinicola'' in southwestern Mexico.

Description

The Aztec thrush is long and weighs . The adult male has a dark brown hood, the head, neck and upper mantle being dark brown, with pale flecks or streaks. There may be a pale brown

supercilium The supercilium is a plumage feature found on the heads of some bird species. It is a stripe which runs from the base of the bird's beak above its eye, finishing somewhere towards the rear of the bird's head.Dunn and Alderfer (2006), p. 10 Also ...

. The back, scapulars, median

coverts A covert feather or tectrix on a bird is one of a set of feathers, called coverts (or ''tectrices''), which, as the name implies, cover other feathers. The coverts help to smooth airflow over the wings and tail. Ear coverts The ear coverts are sm ...

and greater coverts are dark brown, the greater coverts having white edges. The primary coverts are black, with grey tips. The

flight feather Flight feathers (''Pennae volatus'') are the long, stiff, asymmetrically shaped, but symmetrically paired pennaceous feathers on the wings or tail of a bird; those on the wings are called remiges (), singular remex (), while those on the tail ...

s are black, with some white patches. The lesser and median coverts of the underwing are white, and the greater coverts are blackish grey. The tail is black or blackish brown, with whitish grey tips. The breast is dark brown, and the rest of the underparts is white. The beak is dark brown, and the legs are pale pink. The female does not have a hood, is paler, and has larger streaks. The juvenile bird is blackish, with golden-buff marks on its head and back. It has a cinnamon or reddish-brown lower back, a black tail and scaled underparts.

Distribution and habitat

The species is found in Mexico, in mountains above sea level. Its habitat is mostly ravines of pine and pine-oak forests. The Aztec thrush is a vagrant in western Texas to southeastern Arizona. The first record in the United States was an immature bird observed in 1977 in

Big Bend National Park Big Bend National Park is an American national park located in West Texas, bordering Mexico. The park has national significance as the largest protected area of Chihuahuan Desert topography and ecology in the United States, and was named after ...

, Texas.

Behaviour

This bird usually associates in small groups, sometimes joining

mixed-species foraging flock A mixed-species feeding flock, also termed a mixed-species foraging flock, mixed hunting party or informally bird wave, is a flock of usually insectivorous birds of different species that join each other and move together while foraging. These ar ...

s. It forages in dense vegetation on the ground and eats berries and insects. It has been observed cocking its head while feeding. Its calls include , and its song is the call repeated and mixed with some other sounds. In the southern part of its range, breeding takes place from May to June. The nest is cup-shaped and made of grass and moss. The eggs are pale blue.

Status

The ''R. pinicola'' population is estimated to be less than 50,000 individuals. The population trend is probably declining because of habitat loss. The decline does not appear rapid enough to meet the criteria for vulnerable status, and the range size and population size are both above the threshold for vulnerable status, so the

IUCN Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biol ...

has assessed the species to be of

least concern A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. T ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q568863

Aztec thrush The Aztec thrush (''Ridgwayia pinicola'') is a species of bird in the family Turdidae. It is found mainly in Mexico, but vagrants are occasionally seen in the United States. Its natural habitat is montane forests. The IUCN Red List denotes it as ...

Endemic birds of Mexico

Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Birds of the Sierra Madre Occidental Birds of the Sierra Madre del Sur