The pale-eyed blackbird (''Agelasticus xanthophthalmus'') is a species of

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

in the family

Icteridae Icterids () or New World blackbirds make up a family, the Icteridae (), of small to medium-sized, often colorful, New World passerine birds. The family contains 108 species and is divided into 30 genera. Most species have black as a predominant ...

. It is found in

Ecuador Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contain ...

and

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

where its natural

habitat In ecology, habitat refers to the array of resources, 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 manifestation of its ...

swamp A swamp is a forested wetland.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p. Swamps are considered to be transition zones because both land and water play a role in ...

s. An inconspicuous bird of very local occurrence, it was first described in 1969 by American ornithologist Lester L. Short.

Description

The adult pale-eyed blackbird is entirely black in both sexes. It has white or pale buff coloured irises to its eyes which are very distinctive and distinguish it from other black birds found in the area such as the velvet-fronted grackle and the

shiny cowbird The shiny cowbird (''Molothrus bonariensis'') is a passerine bird in the New World family Icteridae. It breeds in most of South America except for dense forests and areas of high altitude such as mountains. Since 1900 the shiny cowbird's range ha ...

which have dark eyes. Juveniles and immature birds are brownish-black with underparts streaked with yellow or buff. The call is a loud metallic "tew-tew-tew-tew" similar to that of a

black-capped donacobius The black-capped donacobius (''Donacobius atricapilla'') is a conspicuous, vocal South American bird. It is distributed across the northern half of South America. Taxonomy In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a descrip ...

. It is usually sung from the top of a shrub.

Distribution and habitat

The pale-eyed blackbird is found in a restricted area of eastern Peru and Ecuador. Its habitat is marshy areas round lagoons and

oxbow lake An oxbow lake is a U-shaped lake or stream pool, pool that forms when a wide meander of a river is meander cutoff, cut off, creating a free-standing body of water. The word "oxbow" can also refer to a U-shaped bend in a river or stream, whether ...

s and the fringes of nearby grassland. Since its first discovery in 1969 it has been seen regularly in the Limoncocha National Biological Reserve near the

Napo River The Napo River () is a tributary to the Amazon River that rises in Ecuador on the flanks of the east Andean volcanoes of Antisana, Sincholagua and Cotopaxi. The total length is . The river drains an area of ca 103,000 km2. The mean annual dis ...

, Ecuador and in the Tambopata National Reserve near the

Madre de Dios River The Madre de Dios River () is a river shared by Bolivia and Peru which is homonymous to the Peruvian region it runs through. On Bolivian territory, it receives the Beni River, close to the town of Riberalta, which later joins with the Mamore Riv ...

, Peru.

Behaviour

This blackbird is usually seen in pairs and spends most of the day in marshy places in thick undergrowth. It is most visible in the early morning when it emerges into more open areas to forage, and it at this time of day that it is most likely to be heard singing from the top of a bush.

Status

Although it has a very small range, the total population of the pale-eyed blackbird, at over 10,000 mature individuals, is believed to be stable and the bird seems to be facing no particular threats, so the

International Union for Conservation of Nature The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the stat ...

has assessed its conservation status as being of "

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

References

{{Authority control pale-eyed blackbird Birds of the Ecuadorian Amazon Birds of Peruvian Amazonia pale-eyed blackbird Taxonomy articles created by Polbot American blackbirds