Appearance:

A large and long-tailed thrush. Slate grey lower back, rump and head. Brown upper back and yellow buff breast with dark spots. The all dark tail contrasts with the grey rump. Tail colour combined with white underwing distinguishes it from all other thrushes when flying. Flight undulated in long waves, with alternating glides and bursts of wing-beats.

Sound:

Very vocal. Scolding call a hard "check", often given in decelerating series. Contact call in migration a soft, pleasant but, buzzy "weet". Song a mix of dry contact calls; "trrrt trrrrt", and high pitched, drawn out, chattering improvisations. Typically bursts into continuos, squeaky chattering at takeoff.

Contact call, song:

Distribution:

Wikipedia: map (se also Xeno-canto below)

Ecology:

Birdlife ecology

Links:

Observation.org Latest observations

Video IBC

Image search Flickr NB! May give other species

Sound search at Xeno-canto

Featherbase

CC

Appearance:

Very similar to Crossbill, but has thicker neck, bigger head, hardly any forehead and deeper bill. Upper mandible is more curved towards the tip than in Crossbill, and the lower mandible is s-shaped with a "bulge". The tip of the lower mandible is seldom visible from behind the upper. The chest is deeper, and many birds have a front heavy appearance. Adult males shows most distinct characters of the species, and other sexes/ages may be difficult to identify because of overlapping characters with Crossbill. Plumage similar to Crossbill, with dark wings and tail. Males with rufous red head and body, females green. Juveniles greyish green with streaking. Posture less erect than Crossbill, which, together with short tail, contributes to the front heavy impression.

Sound:

Contact call similar to Crossbill's "chepp", but is on average deeper and lacks the "cut-off" ending of each call. In sum: Parrot Crossbill; hard attack, soft ending, Crossbill: softer attack, cut-off ending. The song consist of improvised, resonant twittering and series of contact calls with no apparent phrases. It is generally slower than in Crossbill, with marked pauses.

Song:

Distribution:

Xeno-canto: map

Ecology:

Birdlife ecology

Links:

Observation.org Latest observations

Video IBC

Image search Flickr NB! May give other species

Sound search at Xeno-canto

CC

Sounds:Recorded by Lauri Hallikainen http://www.xeno-canto.org/CC license