Pale Thrush

About the Pale Thrush

The pale thrush (Turdus pallidus) is a passerine bird of the eastern Palearctic belonging to the genus Turdus in the thrush family Turdidae. It is closely related to the eye-browed thrush and grey-backed thrush. The pale thrush was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the thrushes in the genus Turdus and coined the binomial name Turdus pallidus. The scientific name comes from Latin Turdus meaning "thrush" and pallidus meaning "pallid" or "pale". Gmelin based his account on the "Pale thrush" that had been described in 1783 by the English ornithologist John Latham in his multi-volume work A General Synopsis of Birds. The species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised.

It is 23 cm long. The feet are pale pinkish-brown and the bill is grey above and yellow below. The male is brown above with a blue-grey head and throat. The underparts are pale brown, darker on the flanks and whitish on the belly and undertail-coverts. The flight feathers of the wing are dark grey and the underwing-coverts are grey or white. The tail is dark... Wikipedia →