On the Wildside: A woodland songster bouncing back?

Consisting of a note repeated three times, and the sequence delivered again and again, like its cousins the blackbird and mistle thrush, the song thrush is a mainstay of the spring dawn and evening bird choruses. The song is described as loud, rich musical phrases and incredibly distinctive. With this in mind it was a concern and a disappointment when the population nosedived. However, locally at least, numbers seem to be holding up or perhaps increasing slightly. It is estimated that we have just over a million adult song thrushes in Great Britain. The birds generally live around three years though individuals up to eleven years have been recorded. Because of their decline, the song thrush is classed as a Red List Species and a Priority Species in the UK Biodiversity Action Plan.

The song thrush is considerably smaller than its larger cousin the mistle thrush, and in stature is more compact and in colour is a warmer brown with a hint of yellow. The mistle thrush is quite a large bird with a greyish hue and larger speckles on a pale background across its beast. The song thrush has a softly warm cream or yellow colour along its flanks, with smaller brown speckles on a white background across its breast. The legs are flesh coloured. The song thrush diet is made up mostly by earthworms and snails, and the birds break open snail shells by smashing them against a hard object such as a rock, known as an anvil. They also eat other small invertebrate animals such as insects and spiders, along with (in winter) fruit and berries. Their favoured areas to forage for food include under dense shrubberies such as laurel bushes and rhododendrons, where they turn over leaf litter in search of tasty morsels. Worms, millipedes, woodlice, spiders, and similar mini-beasts are all on the menu.

Professor Ian D. Rotherham, researcher, writer & broadcaster on wildlife & environmental issues, is contactable on [email protected]; follow Ian’s blog (https://ianswalkonthewildside.wordpress.com/) and Twitter @IanThewildside