Things you need to know about SONG THRUSHES!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 ก.พ. 2023
- The song thrush is a medium sized relative of the blackbird with a wingspan of 34 cm and growing to weigh just over 80 grams. They are brown over their wings, backs and heads with cream coloured chests mottled with darker brown. When looked at careful these brown mottles are the shape of upturned arrowheads. Like most birds, they can turn up pretty much anywhere but their favoured habitats are Woodlands, farmlands, parks and gardens, they particularly rely on open areas for foraging and wooded areas for nesting. Song thrushes are omnivorous, eating worms, insects and other invertebrates throughout the spring and summer but turning to berries and fruits in the winter when these are in short supply. They are very good at extracting snails from their shells by repeatedly bashing them on a hard surface, often leaving a pile of empty shells in their favoured feeding spots. Song thrushes begin nesting in march when males claim territories and advertise for mates using a repetitive but varied call, which I will demonstrate later in this video. Once a pair has formed the female will create a cup shaped nest, usually among vegetation. This nest is quite distinct as its built with grass, twigs, moss and roots but then lined inside with a layer of mud. Once the nest is complete the female will lay between 3 and 5 bright blue eggs that measure 31mm in length. Only the female will incubate the eggs or brood the resulting chicks. They take between 13 to 15 days to hatch and once the chicks do hatch both parents will bring food to the nest to feed them. At just 14 days old the young are ready to fledge, and after this, the male usually takes full responsibility for feeding and teaching them whilst the female begins to prepare for the next nesting attempt. At around 5 weeks old the young birds will be self sufficient and will gradually disperse from their parents territory. Each year, song thrushes will produce 2 or 3 clutches of young, often using the same nest throughout the season and they’ll normally stop nesting around august time. They are only monogamous for one breeding season and will often pick a new mate every year. Song thrushes are present across the whole of the UK except for in mountainous areas and are also native across almost all of Europe apart from southern Greece and Italy. They were also introduced to Australia and New Zealand in the late 1800s and although they are still found across a lot of new Zealand, their distribution is now very limited in Australia. In some of their northern European range Song thrushes migrate towards the Mediterranean for the winter but in western Europe they are resident all year round. In the UK their numbers have declined by around 50% since the 1960s, but over the past 30 years this has stabilised and has shown signs of slowly increasing. There are currently around 1.3 million song thrush territories here. They have an average life expectancy of 3 to 4 years with the oldest known song thrush surviving to 13 years and 9 months of age. A song thrushes song is made up of a variety of short musical phrases repeated 2 to 4 times.
Thanks to Birds Nests Nature for allowing me to use some of their nest footage, their channel can be found here: @birdsnestsnature
Thanks as always to Fred from WatchRWildlife, his British wildlife channel is here: @WatchRWildlife
#songthrush #gardenbirds #britishwildlife
Some of the other footage and images used in this video were obtained using creative commons licences, the originals and their licence details can be found here: • Énekes rigó // Song Th... • an afternoon at a thru... • Song thrush • Song Thrush at RSPB Fo... • Song Thrush having a q... • British Song Thrush an... • Grive musicienne (Turd... • Turdus philomelos song... • Drozd zpěvný (Turdus p... • zanglijster Turdus phi... • Zorzal común (Turdus p... • Grive musicienne (Turd... • Tordo común / zorzal c... • Zorzal común (Turdus p... • an afternoon at a thru... • Zorzal común - 01-11-22 • Grive musicienne. La c... • La grive et l'escargot • Singdrossel Kinder im ... commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...
Thank you. The song thrush always lifts my spirits, especially when it’s early spring. Love your podcasts.
Thanks Jennifer. I'm glad you enjoy them and can't wait to get more filmed and uploaded.
We have them in our woodland garden. In spring they sing high in the branches - loudly 😊. My favourite songbird❤❤❤
have not seen a song thrush for years, they were very common when I was a kid
Another great video. Already heard some singing to stake their claim.
Thanks Tony. I hears my first the other day but I suspect they'll stop for a while with the next couple of cold weeks.
@@AShotOfWildlife yep, more threats of a beast from the east. Nothing for many of us to sing about!
They have certainly become more common in the Midlands in the last decade or so. I was once driven to distraction by the repetitive song when living in a small village, but I have got to really like them now. A couple of years ago, had a fledgling fed by his dad in the garden, delightful to hear the calls when they were searching each other out.
When I was a kid, we lived in Somerset in a very rural spot. We had resident thrushes in the garden and they used a large flat stone for bashing snails. It was surrounded by smashed shells and covered in snail goo. I used to watch fascinated as they did that. Another great video, best regards.
👍
Thanks Jill!
I live in western Washington (USA). They arrived here last week. I was outside at dusk getting ready to come in for the night when I heard the "twirly song". I was beside myself with happiness as I've been waiting for them since they left last October. They only come out after dusk, though. I get the song sparrow & robin during the day, and the song thrush at night.
I remember seeing them fairly often when I lived in South West London during the 80's. Its rare for me to see them now. Blackbirds are far more common.
Blackbirds are far more common over the country as a rule but there are some places where song thrushes are still quite common.
@@AShotOfWildlife thanks for the info. I’ve recently moved to a waterfront property where I’m seeing lots of water based birds I wasn’t aware of before. Any future videos focusing on Oystercatchers, Redshanks and Curlews would be greatly appreciated as they are fascinating species. Many thanks 😊 🦆
@Coecludd oystercatchers and curlews are both on my list. I hadn't considered red shanks before but if there's enough footage available (alongside my own) then I'll do them too. Cheers!
@@AShotOfWildlife Great. Many thanks.
Another good one my friend, looking forward to spring.🇬🇧
Thanks Dave. I can't wait for spring now!
You must be telepathic Liam, only this morning having watched several of your posts, including the one on Blackbirds, I hunted through your past videos to check out Thrushes and was disappointed I couldn’t find one. So you can guess my surprise when this popped up this evening.
Thanks very much 😁
Haha, a lucky coincidence. I'm glad the video popped up today and I hope you enjoyed it. Cheers!
Thrushes have amazing songs! 🎶Also whoa at 1:59 that was a huge mouthful haha. Beautiful documentary.
Thank you.
Lovely birds, I occasionally see them in my garden but not so much these last couple of years. Their eggs are a beautiful blue. Thanks for upload 🪺.
They nest quite low, so are often tortured, then converted into cat faeces. An estimated 275-million small animals and birds tortured to death every year in the U.K. by cats. They also spread the most PROLIFIC parasite known to mankind - Toxoplasma Gondii, Linked with mental illnesses and a plethora of other "lovely" things.
Thanks! I am goimgbto for a short video about why some birds eggs are blue in the next couple of weeks.
@A Shot Of Wildlife oh excellent, look forward to that.
their rendition of hendrix '' hey joe '' is fantastic ...
I sit in another world,
Land around me,
No modern woes,
Just peace in freedom,
Away from mankind,
R.W.
Thanks for another lovely video 👍 Our world would be such a quiet and dull place without birds ❤
In north america there is a beautiful Trush songbird it has a yellow eye and its plummage is similar with dotted dark spots but from of an orangy color and bigger. Its singing is legendary and ranks among the most beautiful singing bird. It takes the beautiful tall hardwood forest soundscape to give the perfect reverb to his singing and he knows it. He flies from branch to branch until he has reached the highest branch then starts singing. He can mimick other songbirds too, in addition to is own singing. I'll qualify his singing as a spiritual experience to listen to.
Great video on a really awesome bird.
Cheers Dezza.
I love watching them eat a snail! So clever!❤❤
Yes, they have their favourite places to do it as well.
It’s interesting, how they leave a pile of shells behind since I just got through watching, before this video, all about snails lol
Thrushes are fab birds and a joy to listen to and watch. Don't have any where I now live. Great video Liam. 😊
I could never tire of hearing the songs of small birds. Sadly we have ever fewer of them.
A lovely bird the Song Thrush, just don't see (or hear) enough of them.
One of my favs! Not as many as I'd like in nz. They have amazing songs!
thank you for this goodness - I need to know about the green goodness of the world - I need it to strengthen my hope to give me strength - I am sure that we must repair and restore the damage the last 150 years have wreaked on the green world - the more we can know the more we can love the green world, how vital it is for us -- how can we say we love one another if we do not love our own house? God bless you amen
Although the song of the blackbird is often said to be the nations favourite, I prefer the Song Thrush, they are lovely birds to look at also.
The Song Thrush is one of my favorite birds, thank you for educating me more about them I will watch this video again thank you again, Liam
Thanks William, I'm glad you enjoyed it and will continue to watch. Cheers
Thanks Liam, this is great as ever! I have heard song thrushes singing beautifully so many times. I like the old name 'throstle' for the songthrush. Nice one! 🌟👍
I live in a ski resort in NZ, originally we had a rural garden spanning several acres and along with NZ native birds we had many thrush and blackbirds. Now we have moved closer to town with a smaller garden and still both breeds are prolific, especially during the breeding season. Such joy to watch and hear their songs. They are always grateful for fruit when the snow falls.
So lucky to have one singing in the wood behind the house, south west Glasgow
Thank you.! Much appreciated and enjoyed!
Thank you, I am glad you enjoyed it!
Another great video Liam. 🐦
Thanks Jeff!
Great video, thank you !
Thank you!
We found baby song thrush in our garden, he sat on the birdbath. He has no feathers, still could not move (his legs was weak). Now he has more feathers and able to move around.
When did this happen?
@@AShotOfWildlife Just before Christmas.
I can well remember as a child that the lawn would be carpeted in common garden birds; Starlings, sparrows, blackbirds, thrush, wrens etc, but you don’t see that nowadays & Hedgehogs in serious decline & starving to death, dangerously threatened, because we steal all their habitats. You never would see Badgers in the streets back then either. Now I see them a night as they’ve moved into the suburbs in the hunt for food. It’s sad to see.
A beautiful bird
Listening to them in Ontario Canada😊
That would be quite a surprise, perhaps it's a similar species? Although they are sometimes blown across from northern Europe.
Kindly provide the Latin binomial for them. They look quite like our thrushes here in New York.
Turdus philomenus :)
Turdus.... That's ironic... They nest quite low, so are often tortured, then converted into cat faeces. An estimated 275-million small animals and birds tortured to death every year in the U.K. by cats. They also spread the most PROLIFIC parasite known to mankind - Toxoplasma Gondii. Linked with mental illnesses and a plethora of other "lovely" things.
@@ReggieChump it’s the Latin word for the color brown. That’s all. In English it’s taken on a different shade of meaning.
Like your videos, a Song Thrush is always a delight to see and hear. Nice one buddy! 👍👍👍
Beautiful, thank you. I hope you can send a video of the thrush’s voice chattering. I hope so
Excellent video again 😊
We had a pair in our garden, they're always very busy.
Thanks for this great informative video Liam, sadly I don't see so many these days but this video of yours did put a smile on my face 😀
love your vids mate, really nice to see our birds
Thank you
My favourite place on TH-cam
I have just discovered your channel today , I love birds, thank you so much for this information, I have just subscribed. Thank you
Thank you so much and a belated welcome to the channel! I hope you have found lots of videos that you enjoy here.
I’m in the US, and while I have many many sparrows and Eurasian collared doves, I never see any songs thrushes here in my state of California.
I believe they are a very rare vagrant there so you'd need to be extremely lucky to see one. There are some similar birds in North America though, including the wood thrush.
I love your stuff. We have several species of thrush here in the US. When I was a kid I caught one that was doing the 'can't fly' act to lead me away from it's nest. I thought it was tame, but when I let go it just flew away.
I always learn something new from your videos, thank you for posting them, always very interesting 👏💯
thanks for this video very interesting thanks for sharing
Thanks Keith, I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Glorious and instructive as ever.
Thank you for a lovely video. ❤
You're welcome, thanks for watching and commenting :)
Since I got interested in birds the only thrush I'd seen until recently were some redwings in my garden in December. They stripped most of our berries and soon left. But the past few weeks I've noticed another thrush, and it is definately the song or mistle thrush (hard to tell apart!). They sometime join our blackbirds in searching the garden for worms- I've seen a pair for sure, so this is good timing with your video! I'll keep an eye out for them- I put seed feeders out for the tits/thrushes and some mealworms for the blackbirds, so hopefully the thrushes keep returning.
EDIT: That is some great footage you showed! Would be interested to know where/how you took that if it is yours?
Hi Dan, sorry for not responding sooner. I usually respond in batches but sometimes it takes a little while.
The best place to see song thrushes is in small woodlands, particularly near rivers i have found.
Some of this footage is mine but as with most of these fact files, other bits are creative commons footage filmed by other people (which I find on youtube). I hope that helps, good luck in finding some near you!
Nice one Liam
Cheers!
Gorgeous little blue eggs, they look like chocolate sweets you get at Easter very pretty. Thanks for another informative video 🤗
Thanks Anjela! Yes, their eggs are so blue. I may make a short video soon about why some birds have blue eggs.
@@AShotOfWildlife that would be nice … a nice little eastereggy video 😊
@@angelalayton1655 ohhhhhh! I am definitely going to save the video until easter week now! I hadnt thought of that but what a great idea. Thank you!
@@AShotOfWildlife il look forward to that one 😊
@@AShotOfWildlifep|r rrr
Great channel! Thanks
Great upload, thanks. Very abundant in North Yorks when I was a kid, now I very rarely see them. Hope they are stabilising and on the increase, beautiful little birds.
Lovely vid Liam!
Thank you!
great video , thank you.
Thanks. And thanks for letting me use a bit of your footage.
Great video Liam. We don’t see or hear so many song thrushes around here these days, such a shame.
I used to see hundreds in my childhood. I haven't seen one in years 😥
Five weeks is no time at all, to mature in a hostile world. How spoilt we are, as human beings.
Agreed!
Thanks.
Cheers!
Where can I buy the Beenie to support the channel Liam?
Thanks Brian. The hat was a present from my mum for Christmas, so none of them are for sale. I have recently created a store with my new logo on it, but the items therein are bigger and more expensive than a beanie at the moment. I'm trying to work out how to add beanies to it though, so hopefully when I figure it out they won't be too expensive. If I get it sorted I will share a link with you. Either way, just watching and commenting on my videos is more than enough support. Cheers
👍🌟
Cheers!
Thank you
Thanks Ang!
Nice one Liam. Always like to see the songthrush. I think it has some of the richer, more exotic sounds of any british bird. More of a strange, assertive chant than any sort of melody.
Still spotting them amongst their Nordic cousins, the redwing and fieldfare, at the moment. Cheers
my god dam favourite song bird, love them so much, sadly they are on decline
I heard a thrush last week - but couldn't spot it! It gave me a feeling of springtime being just around the corner. Lovely. Was interested to learn about their nest being lined with mud. It must get awfully messy in wet weather unless they find a very sheltered spot under thick leaves. Looks strong but not very comfy for tiny nestlings!
I haven't seen one for years where I live I often wondered how they were doing
Had a nest few years back,oddly the mother was a female blackbird dad was a song thrush,all went well till a bloody hawk showed up no thrush anymore
We probably have 1 for every 10 blackbirds where I live
It's probably the same near here, if not even more noticeable, especially in the winter when migrant blackbirds are here too.
Too short Liam. I love these video's, maybe you could do one a geese like Brent goose
Started seeing the odd one again. Seems a long time of not having them around.
Do a vlog on the mistle thrush plz they look similar but the mistle is bigger 👍👍👍👍👍👍
Thanks Wayne. They are on my list for a future video so stay tuned.
Amongst common garden birds, thrushes (turdids), along with starlings (sturnids), cannot digest complex carbohydrates - they do not have the right enzymes. They can digest only mono-saccharides in terms of carb's - so glucose, fructose being the commoner ones.
When they turn to berries during bad weather, it is a last resort as the great bulk of them pass through the birds, undigested. In mild winters, berries may never be eaten as the birds may not get desperate enough. All they can digest are any protein and fats in the berries. Fruits - things like fallen apples are even worse as they contain essentially no fats or proteins and birds resoting to eating them will die within only 2-3 days if they can find nothing else, or do not migrate/move to better aeras.
This also means that things like bread and cereal foods are all but useless food, despite the fact that starlings in particular may gobble them down.
The first experiments looking at this go back at least as far as the 1950's - there is a famous study comparing waxwings and thrushes - waxwings are largely frugivores outside of the breeding season, so can digest carb's.
It is also highly likely that other species can't digest carb's either - if the natural diet is primarily invertebrates, having carbohydrate digestion abilities is just adding weight to the bird, and weight is kept to a minimum for flight. (Invertebrates contain no carb's except minimal amounts in their gut (their food), and some probably in their blood, mostly glucose).
I used to confuse this bird with the Mistle thrush but you can soon tell the difference if you get too close to the mistles nest they will dive bomb you
Do you have any information for me as I have a pair of little egrets visiting my chalk stream in High Wycombe. What can I do to help them stay?
I haven’t seen a Song Thrush this year at all…
I have been asked to hand feed a young Thrush as seemly the nest was attacked by magpie At the moment everything is fine but I have never done anything like this before and wondering 2 things .1 is when is it OK to release it ?? 2 Will it be able to fend for itself and survive. Thank You Regards Colin
I youst to see alot of these on my garden. Haven't seem 1 in years. I think grey squirrels living in my woods probly doesn't help the nesting birds
is this the same bird we have in the usa?? here we call them brown thrashers.. ??
Not the same but they do look quite similar. It's interesting that brown thrashers are also brilliant singers just like song thrushes.
Had Nightingales here (U.K. South East) for a few years. Seems all the Thrush family's songs are amazing. Lucky enough to have 13-acres around me. Unfortunate that my mum's dog likes to get hold of the deer and other wildlife and maul them... Same with cats. I work outside all day, so I see a lot of that.... Nation of "animal lovers" NOT wildlife though.... Definitely NOT WILDLIFE!
I have snails in abundance but no thrushes in the garden 😢
isn't the bright blue colour of the eggs making them obvious to egg eating animals?
Hi Ralph, as I made this video I wondered what the benefit of having blue eggs was for some species. I now know the answer but I think I'm going to make a short video about it this week. It's to do with them not overheating basically.
Very helpful thank you. I love and feed the thrushes and sparrows on my garden every night and morning. They're like pets and are always waiting for me when I get up in the mornings,and when I go outside in the day they'll all come flying out of the trees to me. 💘
The beautiful song thrush is a predator of snails & slugs which makes them prone to area extinctions from secondary poisoning from slug pellet use.Please don’t use slug pellets.Even the ones that say are safe will poison these birds from eating dead slugs & snails.
Why use music ? When you could have used the birds song?
It's a good suggestion which I might try in a future video.
@@AShotOfWildlife Would love it!
👍
Cheers!