Bird Sightings: Hebridean Song Thrush

thewesternisles.co.uk

Wildlife Forum NEW Hebrides bird sightings Bird pictures A - Z Bird pictures: thumbnails Bird ringing Seal and dolphin rescue Difference dolphin porpoise Seal pups Bottlenose dolphin A dolphin rescue BDMLR

Overview Flowering now A - Z wildflowers White wildflowers Yellow wildflowers Pink wildflowers Purple - blue flowers Orchid notes

Stornoway Arch Project August garden

Websites directory Featured sites: Hebridean Baskets Artist Wille Fulton Stornoway Arch Project

Bird Sightings : Hebrides : Hebridean Song Thrush

Hebridean Song Thrush

Turdus philomelos hebridensis

Gaelic: Smeòrach

Photograph © Debbie Bozkurt
Stornoway - Isle of Lewis - Outer Hebrides (Western Isles)
2nd February, 2008

"I love snow, I was up at 5.30am waiting for day light....The birds were so tame as they were hunting for food and the robins were nearly walking at my feet. I even creeped up to the wall of the castle grounds (falling down a hidden hole) and got a curlew in the snow.... I got as far as the middle bit of the harbour ... and thought ...I know where the Iceland Gull will prob. be and I haven't a picture this winter so walked around to the cargo ship and there it was very close at hand. Got home to find the birds devouring anything I had in the garden including a Bramling, a first for me and definitely a first in my garden. I even got a beautiful picture of this thrush displaying its colouring off majestically.!

Our Hebridean Song Thrush photographs

Songthrush

Song Thrush

Song Thrush

Song Thrush

AKA: Throstle, Mavis.

Turdus philomelos

Migrant/Resident Breeder, Passage/Winter Visitor

UK RED LIST, 1 million pairs (summer) BTO

Distribution: Europe, Asia, (New Zealand & Australia introduced)

Habitat: Woodland (deciduous & coniferous), farmland, scrubland, villages, towns, parks - shy bird likes cover nearby (Nest: tidy mud-lined cup nest bush or tree)

Diet - omnivorous: fruit, snails, winkles, invertebrates (worms prefered!)

Brown upperparts, black-spotted buff underparts. Smaller & browner with smaller spots than much rarer mistlethrush. Repeats it's song phrases

Maximum recorded age 8yrs, average lifespan 3 years

Similar birds: mistlethrush, redwing

Listen to a song thrush (RSPB site)

The song thrush was taken to New Zealand and Australia by settlers in the 18th Century, it thrived in New Zealand and is now one of the commonest garden birds there.

Often you can hear a thrush smashing winkles on a stone at a rocky shore, or shattering snail shells against a stone inland. You may come across this stone which is known as the thrush's "anvil" - the ground around it littered with broken shells.

The male song thrush perches high in trees or on rooftops to sing, where it repeats it's musical phrases two to four times. The most widespread species in the UK sings November to July, our Hebridean race sings from February to June.

An individual male may have a repertoire of more than 100 phrases, and may mimic other birds, ringing telephones etc.

Other local bird photographs

Debbie's online photo album

back to page top

Home • Contact Webmaster • Advertising