Black-throated Thrush       Turdus atrogularis

 Etymology:

• Turdus : Latin word for Thrush
• Atrogularis : Latin word Atro – Dark,  Gularis – Throat

 Vernacular Names: Tibetan: Do-di

 Distribution in India:  Winter Visitor in North India

Description: Size of 24–27 cm; Wt. of 54–110 g. The male has a black face, throat and breast; dull grey above, tail is black. The lower breast, breast side, belly and flanks  are off-white with broad, indistinct streaking. The bill is dark, yellowish lower mandible; legs are reddish-brown. The female is like male but duller, has some whitish feather tips on throat and breast, a few thin blackish streaks on flanks. The juvenile is dull brown-grey with buffish streaks and spots above, buffish below, paler on throat and belly, with dark malar, thickly dark-spotted breast, less densely spotted flanks.

 Habitat: It breeds in variety of habitats, pure coniferous, sparse dry woods, larch clumps, semi-open willow scrub, groves of poplar and birch , buckthorn  thickets and wooded bogs. It is found up to to 2200 m in breeding season. It winters on grassy scrubby hillsides and in forest edge, willow groves, fields, gardens, orchards, pastures and cultivated ground, from lowlands to 4200 m.

 Food Habits: It eats insects, including grasshoppers, beetles and caterpillars, earthworms, snails. In winter it eats berries and nectar of flowering rhododendron. It forages on ground and in bushes. It is highly gregarious when not breeding.

Breeding habits:  They breed in May–Jul and are single-brooded. The nest is a cup of grass stems, plastered internally with mud, lined with fine grasses, placed low down in tree, on stump or on ground. They lay a clutch of 4–7 eggs. The incubation period is 11–12 days. The nestling period is 11–13 days.