The Clay-coloured Thrush
is the national bird of Costa Rica. At first blush it seems somewhat myopic, unimaginative or even perverse that a country renowned for the vivid brilliance and diversity of its bird life should select one of the dullest birds in the Americas as its avian figurehead. But in my short time here in El Salvador, I’ve come to see it Costa Rica’s way.
The Clay-coloured Thrush is a very close relative of our familiar American Robin, it’s the same size, in the same genus, and it flies, hops and stands sentry just like robin; and for all the same reasons, it is equally closely related to the European Blackbird. There are several more near relatives in the same (unfortunately named) genus ‘turdus’, but I mention the European Blackbird because the Clay-coloured Thrush has a song uncannily like the fluting, liquid melody of the blackbirds’.
On the day of our arrival in El Salvador, I heard birdsong coming from within dense bushes near the hotel, it was almost a blackbird’s song and would have been except for some languid run-on phrasing. I started to think that there might be an escaped population of European birds in this small Central American country.
Then on my first (and shallow) night of Salvadorean sleep, I could hear this same ‘blackbird’s’ song at all hours of the night. Next morning with the song of a blackbird in mind, I couldn’t quite associate what I was hearing with other unrelated songster families; mockingbirds, tanagers or members of the Catharus genus like Nightingale, Swainson’s or Wood Thrushes. It was a puzzle.
Later that morning I happened to see several Clay-coloured Thrushes around the leafy suburbia of the hotel; they’re quite common. Then in researching them I learned that Costa Rica had chosen the Clay-Coloured Thrush as its national bird, not for its visual appeal, but for its rich, liquid song which often continues into the night and in some Central American countries has been credited with bringing on the rainy months of May through September. I’m drawn to the conclusion that my blackbird sound-alike is none other than the Clay-coloured Thrush; its song makes up for its drabness, exactly the point Costa Rica made.
All of that is a rather long-winded way of saying that Costa Rica’s bird of the nation was for me, on my second day in El Salvador, Bird of the Day.
