Two Types of Thrush

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 People often say that they have seen a thrush without specifying what sort of thrush! We get both song and mistle thrushes near the house and as I saw a mistle thrush yesterday this seemed like a good topic to talk about.

The song thrush is a smaller thrush with "arrow head" spots on its chest.In flight the underwing is a browny orange. When disturbed it tends to fly low into cover.

The bird that this is often confused with is the mistle thrush.  The mistle thrush is a larger bird . The chest spots are more rounded, it is whiter underneath in flight, and if disturbed it flies away high to a perch. This bird has a habbit of singing from a high perch even in a strong wind and the old name for it is the "Storm Cock".

The mistle thrush song is a bit like that of the blackbird.

Diary Notes
Another cold night (minus 4), and the snow that is still lying is being blown about by very strong winds this morning.
There was a family of 3 roe deer in the next field at dawn this morning.  Nothing but rabbits in the three camera traps I set last night.There was a lot of woodpecker drumming activity yesterday afternoon.



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