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Eyebrowed Thrush | Turdus obscurus
Vale lijster | Zorzal cejudo
The Eyebrowed Thrush is the smallest of the Siberian thrushes: slate-grey head, olive-brown back, a bright white supercilium and plain orange flanks. It breeds in the taiga of central and eastern Siberia and winters in South-east Asia. In the region it is a great rarity, with a few autumn records in the Levant and reports from the Gulf.
Voice
On migration a thin, slightly nasal, falling tseep or dzee, softer and shorter than the night call of Redwing. When disturbed a short, low tuk or chuk. The song, not to be expected here, consists of two to four clear, rising whistles, tyoo-wee-tyoo, with a thin trill after it.
Recording: Ray Tsu 诸仁 — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
21–23 cm. A small, slim thrush, smaller than Song Thrush, with a short tail and relatively long, pointed wings. Head slate-grey, back olive-brown; the contrast shows even at a distance. The head pattern is key: a long, pure white supercilium, a short white stripe below the eye and a white patch at the chin, sharply set off against the dark grey face. Breast sides and flanks plain orange, sharply demarcated from a white belly and white undertail-coverts; otherwise unspotted. Females are browner-headed, with a whitish, lightly streaked throat; first-winters often show a pale wing bar. Underwing grey. Bill yellow with a dark tip.
Confusion species
Black-throated Thrush (Turdus atrogularis) and Dusky Thrush (Turdus eunomus) are larger, with black on throat or breast and no orange flanks; Dusky Thrush also has a rufous wing panel. Red-throated Thrush (Turdus ruficollis), not recorded in the region, has a rufous throat and breast and lacks the white supercilium. Song Thrush (Turdus philomelos) has a spotted breast and an ochre-yellow underwing; Redwing (Turdus iliacus) a streaked breast and rufous, not orange, flanks.
Habitat
Breeds in dense, damp taiga forest with spruce, fir and larch; winters in montane forest, orchards and parks in South-east Asia. Vagrants in the region were in copses, gardens and parks with shrubs and berries, in orchards and hills with olives and oaks, and in green oases; they forage on the ground under cover or take berries.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the habitats of North Africa and the Middle East.
Range and movements
In the region a vagrant only. Israel has two records: Eilat in October 1996 and a first-winter bird ringed at the Jerusalem Bird Observatory on 4 November 2007. In Lebanon one was shot at Bchaaleh (Batroun) on 23 November 2017, the first for the country. Porter & Aspinall also list the species as a vagrant to Oman and the UAE; the old Emirati records are undocumented. Unknown from North Africa. Breeds from central Siberia to Kamchatka and northern Japan and winters from north-east India and southern China to Indonesia and the Philippines; also rare in Cyprus and Europe.
How and when to look
Not a bird to look for deliberately; follow the October and November news from Eilat, Jerusalem and the Gulf states. If you search yourself, check thrushes and other songbirds in autumn at ringing stations, parks and green gardens in the Levant, looking for the combination of grey head, white supercilium and orange flanks.
Conservation status
Globally not threatened, with a very large range and a large population; it is trapped locally in its wintering range. In the region a very rare vagrant, with a few certain autumn records in Israel and Lebanon and a few older reports from Oman and the UAE.
Scientific name
Turdus obscurus | Gmelin, 1789
Gmelin described the species in 1789 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'. obscurus is Latin for 'dark, dusky', after the subdued plumage. The specimen the first description was based on came from the forests beyond Lake Baikal.