What is a solitaire bird?

  Solitaire is a common name applied to various species of American fly-catching thrushes in the genus Myadestes. In the United States the genus is represented by only one species. namely Townsend's solitaire, M. townsendi. Members of the species, which is found chiefly in the West from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, are about 8 inches long and brownish gray in color. All members of the genus are superb singers. The name "solitaire" refers to their habit of breeding in the depths of lonely mountain forests.
   "Solitaire" was the name also of a now-extinct flightless bird resembling the dodo. It inhabited Rodríguez, an island in the Indian Ocean, until the last half of the 18th century.