Appearance:

A medium sized thrush with evenly brown to olive-brown upperparts. Underparts boldly covered with arrow-shaped spots. Chest with buff tones. Faint face patterns and buff underwing coverts distinguishes it from all other thrushes in the region. Lacks the white cheek-spot of Mistle Thrush, and the colour of the back of the head is not paler than the back. Sexes alike. Juveniles with buff-spotted upperparts. Quite short-tailed and compact, with rounded wings. Jerky, and not very undulated, flight pattern.

Sound:

Very melodious, varied and a master imitator. Still easily distinguished by its tendency to repeat introductory motives two or more times, and its many high pitched themes. Each phrase is loud and penetrating and the tempo deliberate. Most heard (but easily overlooked) contact call is a dry and very short "zip", sometimes given as a two syllable call "zip-ip".

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

Featherbase

CC

Appearance:

Male with brown back, pinkish white underparts and a bluish grey head with a black eye mask. Female more dull with barred underparts. Juvenile like female, but upperparts also barred . Tail brown with white edges in all plumages. Females and juveniles easily confused with other southern/eastern or vagrant shrikes like; Brown Shrike, Isabelline Shrike, Woodchat Shrike and Turkestan Shrike. Differs from those in white sides of tail, barred rump, mantle and scapulars, scaly underparts and dark or yellowish base of bill (not pink).

Sound:

Call a hard "check check" (like striking two rocks together), and a variable nasal "twee" Song surprisingly varied with many expert imitations of small passerines, interwoven with bell-like ringing and dry chirping sounds. May be confusing and hard to identify if bird not seen. Song not very loud, but phrases can be very long.

Alarm call, 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

Featherbase

CC