SD’s Most Wanted

The orange-billed nightingale-thrush has been spotted and recorded exactly two times in the United States. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical dry forests, moist lowland forests, and heavily degraded former forest.

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However, the orange-billed nightingale-thrush was recently spotted in South Dakota, and birders everywhere rushed to catch a glimpse. It was first spotted in a parking lot of the Iron Creek Trailhead in Spearfish Canyon, where a visiting birder heard the thrush’s unique flute-like singing.  As of July 24, over 200 people from 25 states and two Canadian provinces traveled to the Black Hills to hear and see this rare bird. 

This sighting is still a mystery, as the orange-billed nightingale-thrush does not migrate unless it is a short-distance migration to lower elevations in winter. In South Dakota, it was 1,500 miles farther north than it had ever been. Birders believe that the thrush may have come to South Dakota with a similar species, the Swainson’s Thrush, because they migrate north to Spearfish Canyon in the summer.

The orange-billed nightingale-thrush sings 16 hours per day, and is normally seen and heard in places like Venezuela and Northern Mexico. It is about the size of a bluebird, with a white throat and breast and an orange bill and eye-ring. Its diet includes earthworms, anthropods, snails, and some berries and fruit. It normally forages on the ground. Although rare to the United States, the orange-billed nightingale-thrush is not an endangered species.