Pale-eyed Blackbird Agelasticus xanthophthalmus Scientific name definitions

The Pale-eyed Blackbird is very closely related to the Unicolored Blackbird, and if was not for the white eye of the male it might perhaps have been described as a subspecies of the Unicolored Blackbird? Female Pale-eyed Blackbirds are brownish and dark, unlike the more colorful females of the widespread form of the Unicolored Blackbird. The repetitive whistled song is also similar to that of the Unicolored Blackbird. The Pale-eyed Blackbird is restricted to a handful of sites in eastern Ecuador and Peru, and was described to science as recently as 1969. Its preferred habitats are “cochas” or oxbow lakes, particularly those with thickets of floating grasses and sedges adjacent to tall emergent vegetation. The Pale-eyed Blackbird is most likely to be found as isolated pairs, not in flocks. Its song display is not spectacular, merely flaring the tail somewhat as it sings. The role of the pale eyes, if any, in display is not known.

Very local in lowlands of Amazonian Ecuador (Orellana) and Peru (San Martín, Huánuco, Junín and Madre de Dios).