In the Air: Birds
Brown trembler
Cinclocerthia ruficauda
Jumplinks:
About
These charming birds are full of personality, from their wide range of songs to their striking yellow eyes. Brown tremblers are only found in the Lesser Antilles, and Saba is one of the islands on which they’re most commonly found.
On Saba, brown tremblers can be spotted hopping among dense tree branches and along the ground in search of prey. They have sturdy, long beaks that help them toss leaves around or investigate crevices for food, and their diet includes snails, spiders, beetles, fruit, and even scorpions, small lizards, and frogs (they’re not particularly picky eaters). They’re also known to forage among epiphytes like bromeliads to find invertebrates to snack on.
Keep an eye out for the behavior that inspired their common name: drooping and fluttering their wings in a trembling motion, both vertically and horizontally. Scientists haven’t yet figured out exactly what the point of this behavior is, but some speculate it could be part of a mating display.
There isn’t very much known about their mating and breeding habits, but the species has been documented to build cup-shaped nests out of twigs in tree cavities or hollow stumps, the inside of which is lined with leaves and other plant fibers. (There are also some reports of them using nest boxes for their homes.) Brown tremblers lay their greenish-blue eggs in sets of two to three.
Their singing can sound like anything from musical chirps to longer, nasally calls. Listen for scattered, high-pitched whistles, or for a rasping yeaaah call — it may just be a talkative brown trembler.
Header image by Kai Wulf.
This species is:
Endemic to the Lesser Antilles
Why that matters:
Endemic species aren’t just native, they’re species found nowhere else in the world — and high rates of endemism are part of what make islands like Saba so special. In fact, islands hold the greatest concentration of biodiversity on Earth. And when we consider that 75% of all recent bird, reptile, amphibian, and mammal extinctions on our planet have happened on islands, the need to better protect these incredible places is clear.
Credit: Kai Wulf.
iNaturalist Observations
Where locals, researchers, and visitors have seen this species.
Google / Imagery © 2023 CNES / Airbus, Landsat / Copernicus, Maxar Technologies, U.S. Geological Survey, iNaturalist Map data @2023
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Ask a Scientist
Question: Why are islands hotspots of unique or endemic biodiversity?
Answer: The classic idea of how evolution happens on islands is what we call “allopatric speciation,” which means when you move to an island and are longer interbreeding with other populations, you can wander down your own evolutionary path — and eventually you’ll become different enough to become a new species. Sometimes those changes are adaptations, but sometimes it’s more random.
Dr. Jack Dumbacher
Curator of Ornithology & Mammalogy, California Academy of Sciences
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