Mistle thrush or song thrush? - South London (1 Viewer)

[Jtbt62]

Hi,
Any help with this ID would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Alexander Stöhr]

Hello,
its a Mistle Thrush. Your bird is at the warm/intensense end of variation regarding underparts (=many Mistle Thrush have whiter bellies), but please note:

• oval, vertical, nearly triangular spots on belly
• pale fringes to greater and median coverts, resulting in some kind of pale patch in the wing
• quite open face with vertical bar over ear-coverts (present in quite a few Song Thrush too)
• pale fringes to rump

 

[KC Foggin]

Mistle Thrush was my first choice! Nicely captured.

 

[Richard D]

Mistle Thrush, but as Alexander noted this is the warmer end of their colouration - often they lean to a grey/brown.

I find build the easiest way to tell them apart at a glance - Song Thrushes are more slender elegant birds whilst Mistle Thrushes always look 'a bit of a bruiser'.

 

[KenM]

Just to add that, only Mistle Thrush have elliptical spots running across the belly “horizontally” unlike SongThrush whose spots always run “vertically”.

Cheers

 

[THE_FERN]

Hello,
its a Mistle Thrush. Your bird is at the warm/intensense end of variation regarding underparts (=many Mistle Thrush have whiter bellies)

Colour balance of photo is off. Seems to be too red to me. Suggest would look colder [whiter] under more accurate balance. [This may be partly due to the sunlight: very orange]

 

[PaulCountyDurham]

Hi,
Any help with this ID would be greatly appreciated.View attachment 1435630View attachment 1435631

Yes, mistle thrush. With a bit of luck you heard him singing his heart out from the very top of some tree. In the second picture, you can see he doesn't have the warmer colours of the song thrush. The thrushes are beauty birds, what they lack in looks they more than make up for it with voice and character. The mistle thrush is quite a bit larger than the song thrush but you wouldn't necessarily notice it from a distance. I'm guessing experienced bird watchers will be able to spot it straight away, but I see song thrushes regular and mistle thrushes when I go over the other side of Durham and at 50 yards or so it's not always obvious until you zoom in.

He doesn't look that large in the picture. I've attached a picture of a song thrush for comparison, 'may help you see the difference, and he actually looks larger than the mistle thrush but isn't by a good 6cm. I suppose it comes down to angle. Anyway, you can see the difference in colouring and the difference in markings/pattern on the under-carriage.