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Black-Throated Thrush | Turdus atrogularis
Zwartkeellijster | Zorzal papinegro
The Black-throated Thrush is a Siberian thrush that has the western edge of its winter range in the east of the region. It winters regularly in Iraq; on the Arabian Peninsula and along the Persian Gulf it appears in variable numbers, in small groups in parks and oases in good winters, and hardly at all in other years.
Voice
A thin, slightly descending seeh, softer than Redwing's, and a hard, rattling chak-chak-chak when a group takes off; a disturbed bird gives a dry tuk. The song is almost never heard in the region.
Recording: David Darrell-Lambert — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
24–27 cm. A large, slim thrush with plain, cool grey-brown upperparts, without any warm colour on mantle, wing or tail. The male has lores, throat and upper breast jet-black, like a sharply cut bib against a white belly; in winter these feathers have pale fringes, making the bib look scaly. Females and first-winter birds have a white throat with a dark malar stripe and black spots merging into a necklace on the upper breast. Flanks grey, belly white. The bill is yellow with a dark tip. The underwing-coverts are orange-rufous, conspicuous on take-off.
Confusion species
Fieldfare (Turdus pilaris) is more colourful, with a grey head and rump, chestnut mantle and white underwing. Redwing (Turdus iliacus) also has a rusty underwing, but a broad white supercilium, streaked underparts and rusty-red flanks. Dusky Thrush (Turdus eunomus), a vagrant, has a rufous wing panel and a strongly patterned head. Red-throated Thrush (Turdus ruficollis), outside the region, has a red-brown throat and breast and red-brown outer tail feathers.
Habitat
In winter orchards, date-palm gardens, irrigated farmland with trees, oases, parks, gardens and lawns, often with Song Thrushes. Forages on the ground and on lawns for worms and insects and eats berries and fruit. In Iraq also in open woodland and scrub on mountain slopes.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the habitats of North Africa and the Middle East.
Range and movements
Winters regularly in Iraq, mainly in the north and in the orchards and gardens along the Euphrates and Tigris, and further east in Iran. On the Arabian Peninsula a scarce and variable winter visitor to Kuwait, eastern Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the Emirates and Oman; in some winters, such as 2016/17, in small groups at several sites. In Syria, Jordan, Israel and Egypt a rare vagrant. Breeds from the Urals east through western Siberia to the Altai and the mountains of Central Asia; winters east to the northern Indian subcontinent and the Himalaya.
- Winter visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In winter in a park or date-palm garden along the Persian Gulf: search groups of Song Thrushes on lawns for a greyer thrush with a dark throat. A bird that has found a good spot sometimes stays for weeks.
Conservation status
Not globally threatened. The taiga breeding range is vast; little is known about trends. In the region numbers vary greatly from year to year; it seems scarcer than before in eastern Saudi Arabia, but this may reflect low observer coverage.
Scientific name
Turdus atrogularis | Jarocki, 1819
Jarocki described the species in 1819 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Turdus was introduced in 1758 by Linnaeus. Turdus is the ordinary Latin word for 'thrush'. atrogularis is Latin, from ater 'black' and gula 'throat', after the black throat and breast of the male. The specimen the first description was based on came from Poland.