Wood Thrush
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| Wood Thrush | ||||||||||||||
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| Hylocichla mustelina (Gmelin,, 1789) |
The Wood Thrush, Hylocichla mustelina, is a medium-sized thrush.
Adults are mainly brown on the upperparts, rusty brown on the crown, nape and upper back. The underparts are white with black spots. They have a white eye ring and pink legs.
Their breeding habitat is deciduous or mixed woods across eastern North America. They make a cup nest in a fork or on a tree branch relatively close to the ground.
These birds migrate to southern Mexico and Central America. They occur in western Europe only as extremely rare vagrants.
They mainly forage on the forest floor, flipping leaves to uncover insects. They eat insects and berries.
This bird has a rich multi-part flute-like song.
This bird's range has expanded northward, displacing the Veery and Hermit Thrush in some locations. In recent times, as a result of fragmentation of forests, they have been increasingly exposed to nest parasitism by Brown-headed Cowbirds, as well as loss of habitat in their winter range.