Slaty-backed Nightingale-Thrush

The slaty-backed nightingale-thrush is 17 to 18 cm (6.7 to 7.1 in) long. Specimens from Ecuador and Colombia weighed 30.5 to 38 g (1.1 to 1.3 oz). The sexes have the same plumage. Adults of the nominate subspecies C. f. fuscater have a dark slate gray head with a bright orange to yellowish orange eye-ring and a white to gray throat. Their upperparts are dark slate gray. Their underparts are mostly dark slate gray; the center of the breast and belly have varying amounts of white mixed in and sometimes a yellowish tint to the white. Voice: A lyric description of the slaty-backed nightingale-thrush's song is "a dreamy, mesmerizing series of low, flute like phrases...eer-lee or ur-eee-lee, phrases halting and hypnotic, as if disembodied from bird and floating eerily through the forest". Another description is "melodious and leisurely...a series of simple phrases, e.g, toh-toh-tee...tee-toh or tlee-to-tleedelee...to wee-tlee?".