Townsend's Solitaire

Townsend's Solitaire is a medium-sized Turdidae, slightly larger than a Bluethroat, but with a very different appearance. Its long tail makes it look slender. The sexes are similar. The plumage is all shades of gray. The eye is surrounded by a white eye ring which stands out clearly against the uniform gray of the head, which may show a very vague indication of a eyebrow. The remiges and the greater coverts are darker, almost black. On them stands out clearly an area of tawny-rust forming a particular pattern on the wings. The first stain is formed at the base of the primaries, well visible on the closed wing, or in flight. The secondaries are bordered with the same color forming a longitudinal stripe on the closed wing. Finally, the primary coverts, greater coverts, and tertiaries are edged with pale, breaking the uniformity of the gray of the upper part. The primary projection is long, the wing tip going forward beyond the tail up to the mid-length. The dark tail shows white clearly visible on the outer rectrices and at its end. The under-tail coverts are gray and rimmed with whitish. The black bill is relatively small for a Turdidae of this size. The iris is dark. When observation is brief, this species could be mistaken for a mockingbird, whose silhouette is similar. But a mockingbird does not have an obvious eye ring and its pattern on the wing is different. In addition, its attitudes are very different and it is also much more demonstrative in all respects. As is usual in the family, the juvenile has plumage densely spotted on a darker background than the adult; as a result, it can be confused with a young Bluethroat, if it were not for the silhouette.