28 January 2010, El Valle, Cocle Province, Panama

We found this species to be abundant and aggressive often chasing away
other birds. This bird of Central America is the National Bird of Costa
Rica. Geographic variation is slight, but six races recognized. T. g.
casius breeds from Costa Rica south. It has more buff on the belly and
especially the underwing coverts compared to other populations.

This species was formerly called Clay-colored Robin, but the name was
changed to Clay-colored Thrush in the 49th supplement to the AOU checklist.
This change applies to most of the neotropical thrushes in the genus
Turdus, but not to the American Robin (Turdus migratorius) or several other
species which inconsistently retain the surname "Robin."

Recent genetic data show T. grayi to be closely related to Spectacled
Thrush (T. nudigenis) of Northern South America and Unicolored Thrush (T.
haplochrous) of Bolivia. All three share drab brown plumage and yellowish
bill color.

Digiscoped with Panasonic DMC-LZ5 | Nikon FieldScope 3 | 30X WA | hand-held
(no adapter)