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:

Slate grey upperparts with barred white underparts. Female and juvenile sometimes rufous brown. Male with defined grey breast in contrast to barred white belly, female with diffusely barred chest and throat. Yellow iris and thin bill. Wings and tail long and slender, often giving the impression of a small falcon. Often perches with a more horizontal posture than hawks or falcons, i.e. tail pointing backwards and not towards the ground, and drooping wings. In flight wings are not raise above horizontal plane, and it seldom glides like raptors.

Sound:

Song: the well known disyllabic "cuck-coo" with emphasis on first note, and the second note a third lower than the first one. Also a harsh "tchaa tchaa", and a bubbly trill, reminiscent of Little Grebe, uttered by the female.

Male:

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