Eyebrowed thrush

Eyebrowed thrush
Temporal range: 0.09–0 Ma
↓
Late Pleistocene – present
Scientific classification
Kingdom:Animalia
Phylum:Chordata
Class:Aves
Order:Passeriformes
Family:Turdidae
Genus:Turdus
Species: T. obscurus
Binomial name
Turdus obscurus
Gmelin, 1789

The eyebrowed thrush (Turdus obscurus) is a member of the thrush family Turdidae. The scientific name comes from Latin Turdus, "thrush" and obscurus "dark".[2]

Egg, Collection Museum Wiesbaden

It breeds in dense coniferous forest and taiga eastwards from Siberia. It is strongly migratory, wintering south to China and Southeast Asia. It is a rare vagrant to western Europe.

It nests in trees, laying 4-6 eggs in a neat nest. Migrating birds and wintering birds often form small flocks. It is omnivorous, eating a wide range of insects, earthworms and berries.

This is an attractive thrush, with a grey back and head, the latter having a black eyeline, bordered white above and below. The breast and flanks are orange, and the belly white. The sexes are fairly similar, but immatures have a browner back.

The male has a simple whistling song, similar to the related mistle thrush.

In 2007 an eyebrowed thrush was sighted at the Jerusalem Bird Observatory in Jerusalem.[3] This is the second recorded sighting in Israel; the first was at Eilat in October 1996.

In 2011, an eyebrowed thrush was sighted in Australia, near Malanda in Queensland.[4] This is possibly the first confirmed sighting of the species on the Australian mainland.

Fossil Record

In 2017, an assessment of late Pleistocene Indonesian passerines found a fossil of this species.[5]

References

  1. ↑ BirdLife International (2012). "Turdus obscurus". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2013.2. International Union for Conservation of Nature. Retrieved 26 November 2013.
  2. ↑ Jobling, James A (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm. pp. 278, 393. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4.
  3. ↑ Jacobs, Megan (5 November 2007). "Rare bird is sighted in Jerusalem". Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 4 October 2017.
  4. ↑ Eye-browed Thrush – First for Australia, Feb. 9, 2011, Bird-o.com
  5. ↑ Meijer, Hanneke J.M.; Awe Due, Rokus; Sutikna, Thomas; Saptomo, Wahyu; Jatmiko; Wasisto, Sri; Tocheri, Matthew W.; Mayr, Gerald (2017-08-17). "Late Pleistocene songbirds of Liang Bua (Flores, Indonesia); the first fossil passerine fauna described from Wallacea". PeerJ. 5. doi:10.7717/peerj.3676. PMC 5563437. PMID 28828271.


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